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A few weeks back a Luther was showing off his range of acoustic guitars at a show. He had a fanned fret guitar there which I tried. It was strung with 13s but hi could bend them like 10s easily. The design means less string tension. But a fanned fret guitar needs a lot of thought to play !

I have large(ish) hands and bought and several short scale guitars because I always struggled with with the (perceived?) smaller frets.
Then I bought a Gretsch. No more problems with a short scale and it appears to be easier to play than my other guitars (except my Apche)

Regards
Tony

Awakened at 3am by flipping allergic rhinitis, I have had some more thoughts on this subject.

According to Wikipedia, (not always reliable source), regarding tone, a longer scale favors brightness or cleaner overtones. Whereas a shorter scale favors more warm, muddy overtones. I would have thought that, when using an electric guitar, I would expect there to be a pedal to compensate for any perceived variation in the sound?

Regarding playability of the instrument, I was recently in Guitar Guitar, Epsom buying a pedal (what helpful staff - they treated me as if I knew something about guitars!!!), and they gave me a 1600 squid Fender Jaguar, to try out the pedal (Electro-harmonix Oceans 11) through a 50 watt Boss Kantana amp. I cannot say that I noticed any difference in the playability of the guitar - but there must have been a total approaching 100 switches on the guitar + pedal + amp!

I regard myself to be pretty average in all departments, but I thought I would measure the span of my left hand. With fingers and thumb splayed, from the tip of my thumb to the tip of the little finger is 23cms and from the wrist joint to the tip of the index finger is 20 cms. Stuck in lockdown lately, I have been playing more guitar, and to my surprise I can span more chords and, like in the old ad, reach the parts that other beers don't reach, so to speak.

I do realise that there must be quite a few variations in the size of player's hands, in general. It has always amazed me how Jimi Hendrix had such a long thumb - he could almost barre the fretboard with it - but that was Jimi !!!

May I wish you the New Year you would wish yourself,
With kindest regards,
Christopher

The difference in scale length between a Gibson type and a Fender type guitar can mean being able to play certain chords or not. I find it easier to play chords on a Gibson than a Strat... It must make a difference as to how old you are and how flexible your fingers are.

Tigerdaisy wrote:The short scale doesn't give the Fender 'twang' but is slightly easier on the hands for fingering certain chords- I find a Gibson SG type of guitar easier to play chords on than a Strat. We're only talking about 1/2 inch or so difference and so you don't really notice the difference that much, except that there's less of a stretch fingering chords.
I should add that all Gibsons are 'short scale' and all Fenders are the longer scale, (as far as I'm aware) why exactly these choices were made in the first place I don't know, but there are subtle differences in character of sound. PRS mostly uses the shorter scale although they use the longer scale for their Fender type guitars.

I'm afraid that it isn't correct that all Gibson guitars are "short scale". In fact, only a few ever were.

The more common 24.75" scale on a Gibson (SGs, Les Pauls, 335s, 175, J-45, etc) is not "short". It is within the definition of "standard scale length".

Even so, there are many well-known Gibson models with the longer standard scale of 25.5". These include the premium acoustic and electric archtops (L5, L-7, Super 400, Barney Kessels, etc) and the upper end of the flat-top jumbo range (J-200, Hummingbird, Dove). There is even at least one Gibson solid electric with a 25.5" scale: the RD series.

Historically, Gibson did also make genuinely short scale models as options within the range. The ES-120T came with a scale length of 22.75" and the Melody Maker (plus some Les Pauls) could be supplied as an option with that 22.75" scale, which Gibson called the "3/4" scale.