Mary, The usual tuning for Irish tenor banjo is one octave under fiddle E A D G , The scale length depends on your stature I play a standard length but ladies with smaller fingers than mine would probably feel more comfortable with a short scale, but remember if you use a shorter scale length you should use heavier strings to compensate. In the U.K. tenor banjos are more popular than 5 strings and so are harder to come by hense more expensive. Wether you buy second hand or new get one that feels right and is comfortable with a good sharp treble sound but dont forget you need a deep sound on the bass end also. When I bought mine I tried Clareen, Gibson, and a host of other less expensive instruments but I found the best sound at the time was from a Samick Priced around £700 ($1.000) Hope you get what you want. Cheers Bill