Robin T., please don't ever delete your instructional videos. I still go back and watch them and Robin Clark's too.

Strumelia, I hope the little movies are of help. :)

I always find your videos so enjoyable and helpful Robin. You have such a practical way of solving playing problems and explaining them in a simple hands-on way.  Please don't ever delete them- they help a whole lot of people!  

P.S. nice that Candy makes a little appearance in this one.  

Just for quick viewing to let you know what are false nuts/reverse capos.  I can delete the videos later. 

That's another subject Don.  I'll answer it in another post so we can keep subject separate and easier to find.

I have purely diatonic instruments and those with 6.5 frets and love 'em all!  I retune plenty using a false nut (at fret 1 and fret 4) from my "home base" tuning of DAA and am happy to have those extra frets when I want them.  

Yep that is nominally DAA tab.  I've not seen other tab or publications by Tom Arnold.  Anyone else??  He must be assuming (somewhat erroneously) that everyone has a 6+ fret on their instrument.  

Not seen other DAA tab with 6+ or other added frets either...

Don, Thanks for posting the pictures! I was just going by a tab book of hymns that I have. Yes, those particular hymns do have accidentals. Checked them out in my Baptist Hymnal 2008. If you look at Robin's video he demonstrates how to get those in between notes. On dulcimers that don't have a 6 1/2 fret that is what you'll have to do. It's not hard. If I can do it you can too. You have a nice long space between the 6 and the 7th fret. In between is where the 6 1/2 fret would be but you really don't need it. Just touch the string with your noter in between the 6 and 7th fret then touch then end of the noter onto the fret board. As I said if you go to about 13:18 on Robin's video that I posted he demonstrates how to do that. It would be worth your time to look at the whole video. I'm assuming you want to play noter/drone style.

I found Robin's video. If you like noter drone this is definitely worth watching and watching over and over again to get the techniques. Watch at about the 13:18 mark for getting those in between notes.

There are some hymns that have accidentals. Blessed Assurance is one example. I play that in DAA on my Prichard replica. The second line first measure there is a sharp (accidental) on the third note...above the word divine...note above di. I take my noter between the frets and hit the fret board while touch the string. It's kind of like bending the strings. So, on some hymns there are accidentals but you can get that in between note with the noter by placing it between the frets and touching the string with the noter touching the fret board. Robin Clark demonstrated that on his noter techniques video. Not sure if it is still on this site. As Robin said, to have a book of hymn tab that requires a 6 1/2 may be unusual. It may be tab for DAd. I usually use a hymnal and pick out some favorite hymns to play. I try to do it by reading the notes but sometimes I cheat and tab them out, LOL. I've had to transpose some but Rob Lackey helped me out on ones I've had trouble with. 

That would be very unusual for DAA TAB.  Are you sure it is not DAd TAB?

I use all those extra frets fairly regularly, in (DAA type) ionian tuning.  I like to play lots of renaissance and medieval music, and those tunes seem to have many accidentals in them which call for those odd sharps and flats in the middle an otherwise major/normal tune.

I also used those extra frets a whole lot when playing minor sounding archaic oldtime fiddle tunes.  I can't explain why, but I just needed them to get through the tunes.

I sometimes use the 6.5 (and 13.5) fret when playing in DAA tuning, but not often. I don't own any instruments with other extra frets.  Mostly I find them useful when playing chord style in DAd tuning.

Another "Never". 

Like Robin I prefer my fretboards unadulterated with extra frets.  As he says, it's just cleaner, and I don't mind re-tuning a single string to change modes -- takes less than a minute usually.  DAA, DAC, DAG, DAd  just change the melody string to change the mode.   I keep another dulcimer tuned Ccc for singing with as that keynote suits my voice much better.  The Bagpipe tuning -- Ddd, Ccc etc. does for dulcimers without additional frets what the 6+ fret does for those who tune DAd  -- it allows me to play at least two modes --  Ionian and Mixolydian, and 'cheat' Dorian and sometimes Aeolian using grace notes to work around missing incidentals.

Never Don,  my personal preference is for a pure diatonic fret board with no extra frets at all.  I find it much easier and cleaner when using a noter.  The standard 6 1/2 and 13 1/2 frets are pretty nonsensical notes when playing in DAA.  And re-tuning for other modes is pretty straightforward.  I do sometimes use a 6 1/2 for Galax dulcimer playing from d,d,d,d and e,e,d,d