In this video
I'm teaching you the lead line from "Boys Don't Cry" by The Cure, which uses the A major scale. I'll show you the scale first - it's not absolutely essential that you learn it, but it includes most of the notes that make up this melody. Playing notes in order from low to high is like learning your ABCs before you start talking and writing sentences, because music absolutely is a language.
Finger Positioning
Place your first finger at the second fret of string two. When placing fingers at a fret, always be at the side closest to you. If we're over the other side or even in the middle, we have to press down a lot harder. We want to press down as light as possible while the note rings out. I'm set up like playing a D chord - thumb sat on top, not right over, just sat on top. I'm also slightly gripping here like going in for a handshake with the guitar neck, which puts my fingers on this angle. This angle is super important for indie rock, blues, lead guitar, electric guitar stuff, especially for string bending later on.
The Melody
The melody starts from the third note of the A major scale. First finger second fret string two, middle finger third fret, then open thinnest string. We play the first note twice to get that opening signature part. The rest of the notes come from the scale on string one - open, second fret with first finger, fourth fret with middle finger, fifth fret with third finger. If you're a real beginner struggling with this, you can play all of it with one finger. Everybody's got to start somewhere. But ideally this angle of our fingers enables the stretch - I can't stretch my third finger to the fifth fret if my fingers are flat, but on this angle I can because I'm stretching like playing a C chord.
Final Section
The final part comes down all that same set of notes but a little bit quicker. It repeats and repeats just like a guitar riff. Because we're on the thinner strings, we're essentially playing a lead solo here. This is really exciting if this is your first time playing single notes or lead guitar at all. Once you can do that, play along with me to a loop of the chords at 50% speed (65 BPM) and then 90 BPM. The chords are A major, B minor bar chord, C-sharp minor, then D. You can recreate this yourself using a looper pedal - I've got a separate video for that in the description.