What is this called?

[dwest2419]

Hi guys back with another thread which I will be brief. Anyway, I had begun to play a chord it was an Fmaj7b5 and when I strum the chord I started humming a note in the chord. And the notes that make up an Fmaj7b5 are F A B E Come to find out the note I was humming was the note E which is the major 7th. What is this called? Is it a stronger note than the rest of the notes in the chord or something??? Or I just loved the way that note rings out in that particular chord. Why the note E???

[dwest2419]

Never mind you guys. I think I found out what I was looking for, I found an answer from this website http://mugglinworks.com/chordmaps/part1.htm

I high light the bold area that gave me understanding.

Intersection


At this point, you might think we should learn a lot about scales, and someday I hope you can. But for now, we need to stay true to our purpose: to know the chords we need and how they flow from one to another. So let's move on.


It might surprise you, but it's possible to write a very good song without knowing a lot about scales. When you play a chord, you can immediately hum several notes that seem to fit. This process of playing and singing while searching for a strong melody is automatic. You "hear" the vocal lines in your head, or you experiment until you discover something you like. Part of the fun of writing songs is this searching process.


But while you can get along fine "discovering" the tune, it's a lot harder to discover chords. The writing process is much easier if you already have a group of chords to work with.

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So my point is now that I have found a chord where I hum the melody what is the next step? Is like figuring out what scale to play over the hum chord?

[dwest2419]

I have this "one" question. Could it be possible that whenever I hum a note could it possibly be the root of a chord or could it be the melody? The reason I ask this gtrdave is because I find it very easy to spot little chords (triads) when its a bass note than bigger chords. When I play bigger chords for some strange reason it is always the last note that I strum that always determines to be the note that I like to hum in the chord. And for these bigger chords I try to place that note that is hum as my bass note in the chord, but I find it difficult to put together. Am I wrong on this or what should I do gtrdave?