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Topic: Why are they called the chromatic strings? |
Bob Bestor
From:
Ashland, OR
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Posted 15 Jan 2017 12:37 pm |
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In E9 tuning why are strings one and two referred to as "the chromatic strings"?
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Keep on truckin' |
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Brint Hannay
From:
Maryland, USA
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Posted 15 Jan 2017 12:56 pm
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| That's been debated ad nauseam on the Forum, with no consensus reached. |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 15 Jan 2017 12:59 pm
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Because someone called them that fifty years ago when it might have made more sense to call them "diatonic strings", as the now fairly esoteric term "re-entrant strings" was even more wildly esoteric then.
The name never fit, but it stuck.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 15 Jan 2017 3:30 pm
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In fairness to the anonymous coiners, "chromatic" outside the context of semitones in music means "colourful", and those strings certainly are that. They allow us to play stuff in 3rds without moving the bar and to overlap the tones like a pianist, and to move in and out of unisons like in Lane's recent String Two video.
But it's a bad description nonetheless. Trouble is, if there were a better one it would have taken over by now.
_________________
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Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Karen Sarkisian
From:
Boston, MA, USA
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Posted 16 Jan 2017 6:19 am
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the 2nd string D# is not in the chord scale for E9 tuning, F# is the 9 so not sure why the first sting, but for the 2nd string it makes sense.
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Emmons PP, Mullen G2 and Discovery |
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Niels Andrews
From:
Salinas, California, USA
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Posted 16 Jan 2017 7:05 am
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And again why does this matter 
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Good Stuff like Zum S-12, Wolfe Resoport
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 16 Jan 2017 8:55 am
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It matters to people who crave order. I gave up doing that.
From now on I shall refer to them as the "top two" strings, so that others can enjoy pointing out that they aren't really.
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 16 Jan 2017 9:09 am
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Since most of us set up a guitar with at least a little forward tilt, aren't they the bottom two?
If the term was more common, I'd push for "re-entrant" which they are.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 16 Jan 2017 9:27 am
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I started this thread in 2009 to try to get a factual answer from someone who was "on the scene and in the know", so to speak, during the time period when the term was coined. This topic has been endlessly discussed over the years, and I thought it was worth a try to find out the actual truth.
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=163639
Donny Hinson cited the "Sho~Bud All Star Tuning Guide", dated about 1963, which he states "refers to both the 'E9th chromatic tuning', as well as the earlier-used 'D9th chromatic tuning'". This is useful because it at least sets an upper-bound on the date it was coined.
I think this comment from Buddy Emmons is probably as close as we're ever going to get to the truth on this:
| Quote: |
| I can't say for sure who came up with the E9th Chromatic name, but the first person I ever heard say it was Shot Jackson. I remember being surprised that he was aware of the word chromatic, so I figured he picked it up from a steel player that bopped into the Sho~Bud store and laid it on him. |
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Jim Smith
From:
Midlothian, TX, USA
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Posted 16 Jan 2017 10:13 am
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| Karen Sarkisian wrote: |
| the 2nd string D# is not in the chord scale for E9 tuning, F# is the 9 so not sure why the first sting, but for the 2nd string it makes sense. |
Umm, the second string D# is the 7 of the scale (ti). The first string F# is the 9 (re) and the seventh string F# is the 2 (re again). The only note that isn't in the scale proper is the ninth string D which is the dominant 7 (7b). |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 16 Jan 2017 10:16 am
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Yes, but most understandings of a 9th chord involve the dominant 7th
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2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Karen Sarkisian
From:
Boston, MA, USA
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Posted 16 Jan 2017 10:55 am
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yes E9 assumes b7  E9 is a dominant chord, so it comes from A major scale A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G#-A. so any notes not in the A major (or E mixolydian) scale are considered chromatic or non-diatonic.
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Emmons PP, Mullen G2 and Discovery |
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John Gould
From:
Houston, TX Now in Cleveland TX
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Posted 16 Jan 2017 6:24 pm The facts I heard
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The story I got when I asked the question , was it's chromatic if you start on the 2nd string play the 4th then the raise of the 4th go to the 1st play the raise of the 1st then the 3rd and then the raise of the 3rd . And then someone else said basically the same thing but start with the lower's on the 2nd string and then run through the same sequence .
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A couple of guitars
Nashville 1000 Fender Mustang III Boss Katana MKII 50
Emmons LeGrande II and Sho Bud Pro II |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 17 Jan 2017 1:59 am
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I wasn't around then but I like to study history and I do own a piece of it. This is the first pedal steel I acquired
It is a good solid copy by an unknown maker of a Permanent, and when I bought it it had just one lever which had clearly been added later as the workmanship was inferior. It lowered 2 to D and 8 to D# and represented the state of the art at the time (early sixties?).
Now this lever was certainly chromatic, as it served two separate key-changing functions. The 2nd string lower gave the dominant 7th of A, and the 8th string lower gave the 3rd of B, and with the B pedal the dominant 7th to return to E. (These functions are now on different levers.)
So string 2 is definitely chromatic. If you raise your 1st string a half step that makes it chromatic too, as with pedals down it gives A7 - so it qualifies nowadays but I'm not sure it applied back then.
BTW if anyone out there recognises the guitar in the picture, I'd be glad. Appparently lots of small builders copied Sho-Buds, and whoever made this one may not have made many.
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Brint Hannay
From:
Maryland, USA
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Posted 17 Jan 2017 8:47 am
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| Bob Bestor wrote: |
| In E9 tuning why are strings one and two referred to as "the chromatic strings"? |
| Lane Gray wrote: |
Because someone called them that fifty years ago when it might have made more sense to call them "diatonic strings", as the now fairly esoteric term "re-entrant strings" was even more wildly esoteric then.
The name never fit, but it stuck. |
In the Schirmer Pocket Manual Of Musical Terms (edited by Theodore Baker, revised by Nicolas Slonimsky), the word "chromatic" is defined as follows:
"Relating to tones foreign to a given key (scale) or chord; opposed to diatonic."
[emphasis added]
Given that the E9 tuning already existed before the two strings in question were added, and was called "E9 tuning" because it was made up of the notes of the E9 chord, by the above definition the added D# note, being foreign to the E9 chord, is chromatic to the tuning, not diatonic.
(Technically, there's only one "chromatic string", not two. That's where "re-entrant" would be a better fit.) |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 17 Jan 2017 9:31 am Re: Why are they called the chromatic strings?
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Totally agree.
| A long time ago now Bob Bestor wrote: |
| In E9 tuning why are strings one and two referred to as "the chromatic strings"? |
and I now realise that the right answer all along was "dunno - 'cos one is and one isn't."
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Charlie McDonald
From:
out of the blue
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Posted 17 Jan 2017 11:04 am
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Makes sense to me, Ian. I have no difficulty with the scale being E major 9 anyway,
so I guess cos one could, and one couldn't. |
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Jeff Harbour
From:
Western Ohio, USA
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Posted 20 Jan 2017 5:55 am
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| It always made sense to me after trying to play a chromatic scale Without the top two. The large interval between the E and B strings makes it very difficult. So, I just told myself that strings 1 & 2 "facilitate chromatic playing". Then I never had to think about it again. |
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Jeff Harbour
From:
Western Ohio, USA
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Posted 20 Jan 2017 5:59 am
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In fact, I also consider the low F# to be a "chromatic" string... since it's purpose is more for single notes rather than chords.
Another way to look at it is that in this case the word "chromatic" means "easy access to any chromatic note". If you took out the F#'s and the D#, you would no longer have that. |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 20 Jan 2017 9:25 am
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If you consider F# to be chromatic, you're misusing the term chromatic.
Here's the definition: relating to or using notes not belonging to the diatonic scale of the key in which a passage is written.
Unless you're in a funky Arabic mode with a flatted 2,F# is in the scale.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Jeff Harbour
From:
Western Ohio, USA
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Posted 20 Jan 2017 10:46 am
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Don't know if you were addressing me specifically... But as I described, I ONLY refer to the F# string as 'chromatic' because it lets me reach 'actual' chromatic notes...
(Also, that makes it just close enough to accurate that I don't get upset when people say "chromatic strings".) |
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Jim Smerk
From:
Ohio, USA
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Posted 20 Jan 2017 1:06 pm
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Makes me glad I am just a drummer with an interest in lapsteel....  |
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Bob Bestor
From:
Ashland, OR
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Posted 20 Jan 2017 1:48 pm Lane I was thinking along the same lines.
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Aren't both F# and D# in the major scale of E? I am theory-challenged but I had always heard players use the word chromatic when describing a run of consecutive half-tones (ie: E, F, F#, G).
_________________
Keep on truckin' |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 20 Jan 2017 2:02 pm
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Chromatic means, literally, the 5 notes outside the diatonic major scale. So it doesn't HAVE to be a run of half-steps but those fit the name.
I don't get upset or worked up about it (or any of the issues such as calling the note produced by the E raises an E#), but I'll happily play Judith Martin and try to be excruciatingly correct.
I still call them the chromatic strings, but I'll also point out the fact that the name is a nonsense.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 20 Jan 2017 2:59 pm
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It's impossible to go through life being consistently precise. The note produced by the F lever is E#, but's still the F lever in any normal conversation.
"Chromatic strings" works as a description simply because everyone understands what is meant by it, even though it's only half right. 
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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