Five-fret stretch

In music, a five-fret stretch refers to a guitar chord formation such that the distance between the highest and the lowest fingered frets is five frets. This necessarily excludes open strings.

Five-fret stretches are common in rock, blues, and in classical music, and are most common on guitar, but they are theoretically possible on other fretted stringed instruments.

-------------------
-------------------
-------------------
-------12-16-12----
----14----------14-
-16----------------

For example, the above G♯m7♭5 chord's arpeggiated fingering features, "a wide, five-fret stretch," made easier by delaying the placement of the finger for the third-fifth notes^[1]

Common formations involving five-fret stretch in standard tuning

A pattern often used in rock and roll music with standard tuning is:

e|-------|
B|-------|
G|-------|
D|5-7-8-7|
A|3-3-3-3|
E|-------|

This shows the pattern in C. It is simply three intervals (perfect fifth, major sixth, and minor seventh) one after another  Play . When improvising over the top of a pattern like this, the soloist would often use the Mixolydian or Dorian mode, because both of these scales have the intervals of a major sixth and a minor seventh within them.

Sources

1. Nelson, Troy (2007). Guitar Aerobics, p.97. ISBN 978-1-4234-1435-3.