[Twangcat]

I recently started playing banjo as well and had concerns identical to yours because my fingers aren't long and I am firmly in the 24.9" scale camp on guitars. The shorter scale length is simply more comfortable for me. That being said, I started playing banjo on a borrowed Deering Goodtime while doing some consumer research on my way to buying a banjo of my own. I ended up with a Pisgah Woodchuck banjo, which has a 25.24" scale. The shorter scale Pisgah is quite comfortable for me, and the feel of the stretches between frets is pretty similar to my short scale guitars. That being said, I didn't find the longer scale length of the Goodtime to be troubling while I was playing it. Perhaps the thinner neck between the nut and 5th fret of the banjo neck neutralizes some of the hand issues of the longer scale. Just conjecture on my part, but as I mentioned, I didn't feel like the stretches between frets were problematic. I am happy that the Pisgah scale length is closer to my guitars, and I've become accustomed to switching between instruments pretty seamlessly. As well, at least in the Old Time repertoire, a lot of banjo parts are played in the "double D" and "A-modal" tunings, which involve placing a capo at the second fret (banjo tuned to standard Double C or to G-modal) and then either tuning the 5th string up to A or hooking it underneath a model railroad spike (tuning the 5th string back and forth between G and A is easy and hasn't resulted in any string breakage for me using a 0.010 5th string). My point being that with a capo at the second fret, you're playing that much farther up the neck where the fret distances are a little shorter. I think the summary statement here is that in my experience the longer scale of the Goodtime was not a hinderance despite my preference for shorter scale length instruments. Hope that helps...Feel free to contact me off list if you have other questions about any of this.