M.Ted, you wrote:

"As to your own songs, if I understand you, you don't know which notes are the melody and which are chords in your own compositions"

You don't understand me. I don't use chords at all when I write songs, and the only time I use multiple staves when I'm writing a round or a quodlibet... As you suggest, I've always written single line melodies (I've always considered myself a poet first, and only write melodies for those poems which seem like they need to be sung, rather than spoken. Since I can't sing a chord, I don't write any)

The multiple staves/chords problem I have is on other musical sites with midis, particularly childen's sites like Kididdles. I hear the midi cleanly when it is playing through both speakers, but when I download them into my own computer, so I can put words and music together, and get rid of extraneous onamentation (I only do this with public domain songs), I'm faced with a jumble. Basically, I just try deleting "extra" notes by trial and error: delete a note, play the measure back, see if it sounds "right". If it doesn't, put the old note back, and take out another one instead. Repeat.

Takes an awfully long time. I was wondering if there were a system I could use...

The confusion over my own compositions comes from my father, who insists my melodies and words don't match, even though I know they do...