[Winterland]

Why is a steel pedal tuned to e9 in most cases? Why not open e?

[tigerstrat]

You mean a Pedal Steel. "Steel Pedal" makes it sound like it's an effect box to make a guitar sound like a Pedal Steel.

I think R. Randolph might tune his to an open E... anyone know? He always sounds to me like he is playing slide guitar, not pedal steel.

[IamDocWatson]

E9 is like the country tuning, alot of times used on more than a six string usually like 10 string pedal steel so your whol Echord will be in there but the 9 is a nice added note instead of kinda just wasting strings on repeating 3 notes of the E chord through 10 strings, or more