Chromatics or Diatonics?

[John Larson]

So the E9 tuning for 10 string pedal steel is commonly referred to a E9 Chromatic due to the presence of the top two strings that Buddy Emmons added to complete a major scale without moving the bar wherein these strings are commonly referred to as chromatics. Why are these strings commonly referred to as chromatics? Properly they would be diatonics as the notes D# and F# are indeed found within the E major scale as the 2nd and 7th degrees of the scale. The re and ti in solfege.
E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D#
do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti

The only note not properly found in an E major scale is the 9th string D which is used to form the minor 7th of the E 9th chord. E major triad (E, G#, B) plus minor 7th (D) and major 9th (F#) (Octave plus a 2nd).

Anyway to cut to the chase shouldn't this tuning properly be referred to as E9th Diatonic?

Is this like Fender permanently confounding the terms vibrato and tremolo?

[Paul Strojan]

The D# is chromatic to the A major scale. My theory is that the original E9 pedal steel copedent was setup around A major not E major. Most non pedal players primary tuning is a 6th rather than a 9th tuning. On the original Isaacs’ set up, the 4 accessible tunings were E9 open (E, G#, B, D, F#, G#, B, E); A6 ( E, A, C#, E, F#, A, C#, E); E9 over A6 (E, A, C#, E, F#, G#, B, E) and D major 7/ E11 ( E, G#, B, D, F#, A, C#, E). With this set up the A is the one chord of the copedent. As the pedal steel guitar evolved the focus moved from A to E being the one chord there became a need to get the D# and F# for a B major chord.

[Dave Mudgett]

If you read this thread, you'll see that even Buddy Emmons didn't know for sure who started the terminology 'chromatic' - viewtopic.php?t=163639 - but he suspects it came from Shot Jackson, probably in the early 60s. Quite a number of very knowledgeable people posted on that thread.

If you want to read a bunch of arcane discussions about why diatonic or chromatic is 'correct' (or not), feel free to dive into these threads from 2009:

viewtopic.php?t=163104

viewtopic.php?t=163322

I started the first thread above because so many people have speculated about this for a long time. I figured, maybe someone out there actually knows. But I think that true first-hand knowledge of the term's origin may well be lost to posterity.

Oh - and here's another related discussion from a year earlier - viewtopic.php?t=141901

[Ian Rae]

"Diatonic" would be a useless term, as all the other strings are diatonic too. "Re-entrant" is the most logical, but it's not as cool and technical-sounding as "chromatic", which I'm sure will persist despite being inappropriate except when lowering D# to D.

And who ever refers to the "E# lever"? - cos that's what it is...

[Nick Fryer]

My take on it is that the added strings allow you to create a lot of chromaticism D# - E - F - F# - G - G# - A

[Fred Treece]

E9 is a chord name, not a scale or Key name.

The 5 notes in an E9 chord are E-G#-B-D-F# (1-3-5-7-9). A beautiful chord!

String 2 of E9 pedal steel tuning is D#.

D# is indeed diatonic to the E major scale, but it is chromatic (non-diatonic?) to the E9 chord. An outlier, a rogue, a hobo, an alien.

String 1 (F#) is not a chromatic note of the E9 chord. It is the 9th, the chord’s very namesake.

I agree that the top 2 strings of E9 can be called “re-entrant”, but that is a physical term, not a musically descriptive one.

I doubt that you will find the term “E9 chromatic” anywhere in music theory. It is a made-up convention for pedal steel guitar, and for 60 years so far, it is the least ridiculous way to describe the open tuning.

[Fred Treece]

Sorry for that haughty post, but the nomenclature for E9 tuning threw me for a loop when I first started playing, too. I think it’s worth a discussion occasionally, and the only way to bring clarity to it is to mention the history behind it like Dave M. did, and maybe try to get inside and behind the pretzel logic of why it stuck while admitting the confounding flaws.

[Tucker Jackson]

Sorry for that haughty post...

Not haughty at all. It started down a good path, made a strong argument and answered the OP's technical question. I would have only added a few more sentences to the end of your post to zoom out a level and bring things from the theoretical back to the practical world:

"...“E9 chromatic”... is the least ridiculous way to describe the open tuning."

"But, luckily, we don't live in a world where we must use the strictly technical description. If we did, we might be tempted to call the 10-string C6 tuning Csus4-6-Add9 (or maybe C6-Add9-Add11) -- since there are 2 strings there that aren't part of a C6 chord. But a name like that would be both technically correct... and ridiculous.

It's fun to have these intellectual excercises, but a common real world convention is to name tunings by the chord that most of the strings form and ignore the outlier strings that don't fit the chord. Though it may not be wrong to include the outlier strings and call it "E9 Chromatic," and it may not be wrong to call it "Csus4-6-Add9"... we're lucky we can be a little imprecise and just call them E9 and C6.

[Ian Rae]

"Least ridiculous" is good enough for me

[John Hyland]

Interesting academic discussion but I don’t see much reference chromatic very often these days. In the years past maybe, but now go with the flow and just call it E9 and consign chromatic to a historic oddity.