Halo! It seems to be anatomically impossible for me to put my 2nd finger on the 2nd fret and the little finger on the fifth … I’m a woman with small hands…
Hi Paras,
You should be moving your hand. There is no reason to leave a finger down to play the rest of the notes.
Also, you mention finger 2 on fret 2, then finger 4 on fret 5. That is not correct, so I can see trouble reaching if that is what you are doing. Justin plays finger 1 on fret 2, finger 2 on fret 3, finger 3 on fret 4, and finger 4 on fret 5. Easier to see in the video than it is to read here! 
This can be useful to start getting some stretch and muscle to spread fingers, but bent fingers won’t spread far if the bend is at the hand. I have plenty of reach and still move my hand a little to keep this comfortable.
This is a good exercise to work on lifting fingers straight up, or you get the squeak on the wound string, and to gain dexterity to reach and presss string 6 with fingers 3 and 4. It is aso good to coordinate picking with fretting/releasing a finger at the right time.
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Hi Paras! I too have small hands, and understand your frustration. But rest assured: the first lesson of Module 4 introduces beginner finger stretching exercises. It takes time, but I promise if you do them every day, you’ll soon see results! Be patient, enjoy the journey.
MIchael @sequences makes great observations in the post above. 
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Thank you!!! I’ve not resigned myself to playing the ukulele yet…
Thank you for your advice! I worked out that I needed to move my fingers last night and was able to get the riff working albeit slowly… I tried speeding it up with mistakes, just for fun and listened to the soundtrack! It may be something fairly basic, but honestly … it’s just such a great feeling to feel like I’m playing some form of music rather than just twanging on the string.
I ended up getting so carried away that I found some tabs for another riff from one of my favourite songs - the intro from Jeff Buckely’s “Dream Brother” and am alternating between the two to get my fingers used to working independently.
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That’s great! It does feel good to play along with a song you like!
If you listen to the track, there is a hammer-on that you’ll hear after fret3 is played. So if it sounds like something is missing, that is the reason why. Justin is teaching a simplified lesson here, so doesn’t show the way the band plays it.
Paras
Good to hear your confidence is growing. Another thing you can try is using a capo: the stretches are slightly easier further up the fret board. As your confidence grows you can do the exercises on open strings.
Brian
spreading my fingers like that makes me feel like my wrist is about to split in half.
I have a classical guitar where the frets are like 7 meters apart
It is much easier for me if I - like the people in this discussion said - move my hand. Or even with one finger tbh
but Justin does that thing where he places the 4 fingers in the position and says “it would make it easier” and I am afraid I may be missing something.
Hi @MG_Rain, you’re not missing anything. You’re supposed to move your hand around the fretboard - that’s the point of this exercise: learning to move your hand and still find the right spot to put your finger down. Don’t forget Justin has been playing the guitar for ages, starting at a young age. Later on he will show you some finger stretching exercises to allow your fingers to spread more, augmenting your reach. After a while, you will indeed notice that you can spread your fingers wider (on your fretting hand, that is 
). So don’t worry if you can’t manage to put all four fingers on the right frets at the same time for this exercise - I doubt any of us managed to do this, certainly at this stage of learning guitar.
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That’s an interesting observation. I just checked and I can actually stretch the fingers of my right (strumming) hand wider than my left (fretting) hand. I suspect that’s because my dominant right hand gets a lot more use in everyday life. I guess I need to do more stretching exercises on my left hand.
I’m keen to hear how others here compare WRT left vs right finger span.
I was very symmetric before guitar. Today, after working on hand spread for various things, my fretting hand can spread quite a bit wider than my picking hand. Since I can reach frets now that I couldn’t before, it means my fretting has stretched rather than my picking hand being stiff.
Thanks Michael. So that’s immediately after stretching? My comparison was just a random comparison without stretching. In any case, your comparison suggests stretching before playing is worthwhile.
For me, it’s permanent, not just immediately after stretching.
Of course, there could be several reasons why the fingers on your right hand can spread wider: could be just ‘natural’, could be because you have activities in your daily life asking for a wider spread so your hand has adapted, …
What I meant with the left-right difference, is that, if you do stretching exercises only with your fretting hand, as taught by Justin (no need for having a wider finger spread in your strumming hand), only your fretting hand will learn to spread wider.
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No, this is any time now. My work was to reach string 5, fret 10 with finger 4 while finger 1 was on string 6, fret 5. I did this over a year ago, maybe 2 years now. when I spread my hands facing each other, the tips of thumb and pinky are about the finger width further on my fretting hand. It took me a few months to get to this point on the SG (shorter scale) and it has been slowly improving as I push my hand further. I can kind of make the same stretch on a longer scale guitar.
Stretching before playing is certainly useful. I find I can reach a bit easier. But, stretching in general should be warmed up a little. Warming up means light activity before pushing to make hard stretches. This seems to help reduce injury.
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Here I was, feeling good after being able to keep up with the chord changes for the first Maverick song with Justin after 6 weeks of starting guitar from scratch, and that too without looking down at the hands, when this riff brings me back to earth with a loud thud. Fingers won’t reach beyond the third fret, if I am to place the forefinger in the second fret. But the benefit of these discussions is knowing that many have been through this situation and succeeded. My question is this: the only way to play the riff is to move the hand to allow the ring finger and pinkie to reach frets 4 and 5. But if I keep doing that, and even get fluent in the riff, how will moving the hand force these fingers to stretch as needed to avoid moving the hand?
Learning to move around and learning to stretch are two different things. Riffs aren’t really about stretching (although being able to stretch can make them easier), but rather about moving around. Justin will soon introduce you to finger stretching exercises, so don’t worry, you’ll get to that!
Ok, so right now it is fine if I nail the riff and build speed into it even if it means sliding the hand around?
Absolutely!
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Hi Kumar,
Part of what you are doing is learning to spread your fingers, getting your mind in control of the correct muscles and your hand strong enough and flexible enough to do it.
You can always work on the hand movement slowly like you might work muscles in a gym, it just isn’t as interesting as playing a riff!
For me, that riff is more about timing to get my finger off a string in time to play the following note.
Yes, Michael, I am getting that; even if every finger was placed just above its desired place, getting those timing things right and at speed for the sound to be a riff and not just notes would still a challenge to overcome. I hope it is not wishful thinking that learning subsequent riffs will get easier with each new one mastered!