E9 Pedal Steel: What the Numbers Turn Into

The chord reference for this reader. Pick a root, then any of 62 qualities, and get the bar positions plus the thing a chord chart never prints: which digit stands for this chord once somebody counts off in a key.

A pedal steel player reads a number as a destination rather than a position — the pedals get there from wherever the last one ended, so a steel player marks a chart for the move between two numbers more than for either one. With the bar across 10 strings tuned to E9, the next number is often reached without moving the bar at all: a foot or a knee retunes the strings already ringing, which is why this reader's key pages draw every change of a chart as that move.

Every bar position below is a straight bar or a short slant across the E9 neck's open strings, with no pedal or lever down, and each one plays back. What the pedals and levers do to those strings is drawn on this reader's key pages, every change of a chart as a pedal move.