Talk:E9 tuning

The Wall

The fact that both Pink Floyd and Kansas have hits called "The Wall" has nothing to do with E9 tuning... Tbonetime (talk) 13:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Usable On Regular 6 Strings Too

Apparently this form of tuning - Nashville tuning - can sometimes be found on regular acoustic (or electric) guitars too.

Two guitars, one tuned regularly, one tuned for Nashville using appropriate gauge strings, can achieve a 12-string-like sound when strummed in unison.

However, the Nashville-tuned guitar is not generally suitable for picking out a melody in exactly the same way as would be done on the regularly-tuned guitar, since there are octave jumps involved.

Guitarist Justin Sandercoe offers an example in a video tutorial in his lesson TB-505. AncientBrit (talk) 08:07, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The tuning system Justin is describing in this video is an entirely different practice. He is not describing E9 chromatic tuning, which is the subject of this article. He is describing "Nashville tuning": the practice of raising the lowest 4 strings of a guitar by an octave. 20:51, 2 January 2026 (UTC) Trumpetrep (talk) 20:51, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

"The standard Nashville E9 tuning for ten string pedal steel guitar is B-D-E-F♯-G♯-B-E-G♯-D♯-F♯."

If this tuning contains a D# as well as the D natural, it shouldn't really be called "E9 tuning", should it? A D# is the major ninth. It's a contradictory tuning. Oh, well, if that's what people call it, I guess that's what it is . . . .

--Ben Culture (talk) 22:30, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi Ben, The D is a flat 7th; The D# is a major seventh, not a ninth. The F# is the ninth. See ref by Charles Kurck in the article. Eagledj (talk) 15:25, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

2026 Overhaul

This page had 4 sources when I started editing it, and 3 of those were from one internet forum. Worse still, the image in the article was woefully inaccurate, depicting a 7th chord that only shared 3 pitches with E9 tuning.

Now there are several reliable sources for the article. Most of the statements in the article are supported by citations, aside from a few stragglers about different tunings in the Practice section.

Before the overhaul, the article didn't even mention Bud Isaacs. For my money, more information about how Isaacs settled on the E9 tuning would benefit the article.Trumpetrep (talk) 07:33, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Related discussion: AFD for the Nashville tuning disambiguation page

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nashville tuning related to this page. Interested editors may comment there. Adumbrativus (talk) 08:54, 5 January 2026 (UTC)

Nashville Tuning

User:Adam Sampson added a quality reference to Lloyd Green's entry in the Grove Dictionary of American Music, which unfortunately reanimated the corpse of the "Nashville tuning" confusion. Note that Timothy Miller wrote Lloyd's entry. In his expansive dissertation and chapter about pedal steel guitar (The Oxford Handbook of Country Music), Miller makes clear that the "Nashville" nickname for E9 tuning applies to its penultimate form, which is not the subject of this article.

This article is about the re-entrant version of E9 tuning for 10-string guitars, which is also called "E9 chromatic tuning". When people use the term "Nashville" in regards to E9 tuning, it is to distinguish it from the C6 tuning of the 2nd neck, which is sometimes nicknamed "jazz" or "Texas" tuning. It is not unlike saying you ate Kansas City–style barbecue, which is a whole different thing from eating at Kansas City Barbeque.

"Nashville tuning" by itself means a high-strung 6-string guitar. Before I overhauled the article, the text was confused on this issue and conflated the two practices. When the nickname "Nashville" is applied to E9 tuning, it is never out of context. In the Grove article Adam cited, Miller only invokes the "Nashville" nickname in juxtaposition with the "jazz" nickname for C6 tuning as he makes the point that Lloyd helped popularize the E9 tuning for his instrument:

"Green helped solidify the dominance of the E9th "Nashville" tuning, as he completely abandoned the C6th "jazz" tuning typically found on the second neck of a professional instrument in the early 1970s."

To summarize: No one would ever use the term "Nashville tuning" in isolation to refer to the subject of this article. The term would always be used in context to make clear that it is referring to a style of E9 tuning. Miller explains the difference very clearly in his Oxford chapter.Trumpetrep (talk) 01:16, 22 April 2026 (UTC)