Go fretless. I play mainly 2finger as well and have been playing for a few years but still class myself as 'advanced beginner' or 'early intermediate' on a good day. Fancied a fretless for ages and got one in July. Its a bit different, takes more technical concentration but is not that different, but....is massive fun. Since July I have picked up my fretted banjos twice, but played my fretless almost every day. Don't fear the fretless, embrace the fretless fun

Hi John,
I think that you should get a fretless minstrel banjo. With patient practice, you should gradually hear fewer notes that are not accurately fretted and as the muscle memory becomes established and your confidence strengthens, you will find that it is no longer an obstacle. Whilst you could mark the positions on the fingerboard with a pencil or tape and see where to place your fingers, I believe that you would benefit far more from developing your ability to hear the notes and in gaining the satisfaction of mastering a fretless banjo. It could also be suggested that you slide up or down to correct a misplaced fingering, but I would very strongly advise against it.
Good luck with finding the banjo that suits you, but definitely keep a look out for an Eric Prust 'Basic Tackhead' and grab it as soon as you see one.

I can’t recommend. That individual choice is entirely personal. All I can do is offer my own experience: I play fretted, semi-fretless, fretless and flush fret banjos. I didn’t come to banjo as many do, via guitar; I was straight to banjo. That first instrument was a fretted banjo. In retrospect I wish I’d gone straight to fretless. If there was a biblical flood tomorrow, after saving my wife and cat, if there was time I’d grab my favourite fretless banjo. That’s all I can really say.

The ‘why’ is beyond my ability to explain in words; it’s simply and uniquely in the playing.

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Originally posted by jwwallace

I also feel like there is a bias in the quality of fretless players since only experienced musicians typically would choose that? So that makes fretless sound better on average? 

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I can offer an insight on this though...

Fretless isn't more or less technically 'difficult'. What the fretless does is strip away artifice. Completely. In our culture where virtuosity and excellence is associated competitively with technical complexity - the 'dazzle' factor - lack of artifice is overlooked and often disparaged. But better musicians speak a language of understatement, and understand that musicality resides in specific and elusive qualities; timbre, space, tone, phrasing, harmonic transitions. Maybe that is why the fretless becomes attractive? People easily mistake less as a 'lack'. Whereas in any creative field, almost invariably, the most expressive practitioners have acquired the technical facility, have explored it and yet expressively choose to simplify. Speed, apparent complexity and 'flashiness' are actually a technical comfort blanket that many fear to be without. Actually beauty in simplicity is hard-won by experience and far harder to achieve.

You say fretless is the sound that attracts you. Also that you are able to hear when pitch is 'off'. Following your heart is never a bad thing :-)

From the 1840s until the mid 1880s the vast majority of banjos were sans raised frets. Somehow people still managed to play banjos. And they learned without recordings or youtube videos. Infact, many people were self taught using notation based instruction books (egads!). Despite all those challenges, the banjo still became a worldwide phenomenon.

Regarding "minstrel banjo"-- there is no such thing anymore than there is a "minstrel tuba" or "minstrel violin". It is only a "minstrel banjo" if you are playing it in a minstrel show, which I recommend against doing.

I think you would really enjoy the fretless. Find one to try first. You'll be glad you did.