The E9 Tuning
A Summary for Beginners
The purpose of this page is to acquaint the beginner with the E9 "Nashville" tuning for the pedal steel guitar. While there are many variations in use among today's players, this page will concentrate on the most common pedal and knee lever arrangements. A brief summary of what E9 "buys you" as a player will also be presented in the context of chord changes and scale positions.

What is the basic open E9 tuning? Why is it called that?

An E9 chord consists of the 1st / 3rd / 5th / b7th / 9th tones of the E Major Scale (or E / G# / B / D / F#).

(By the way the '9th' is another way of describing the 2nd tone of the scale -- so in the key of E the 9th is F#)

The 10-string tuning is shown below (lowest to highest)
Scale Tone
5
b7
1
2 / 9
3
5
1
3
7
2 / 9
String
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Note in E
B
D
E
F#
G#
B
E
G#
D#
F#

What chords does this tuning give me?

Without using pedals, you get

E Major (on 6 / 8 / 10, 5 / 6 / 8, 4 / 5 / 6, or 3 / 4 / 5)
 -- note: these are important inversion positions -- LEARN THEM
E7 by adding the 9th string
EMa7 by adding the 2nd string
E9 by adding the 9th and 7th or 9th and 1st strings

It's really pretty limited, chordwise.
To see what the pedals add to playing scales click here.