Fred, my first suggestion is to go to the following site, http://homepages.together.net/~partner/tunes.htm

It's a pretty good no-nonsense view of the MIDI/abc world but two words of advice before you start reading:

- Ignore the description of the multitude of (mostly older) ABC software - it'll just confuse the shit out of you. If you get that ambitious check out the shareware called ABCMUS from a guy called Henrik Norbeck - ant decent search engine will find it very quickly.

- When it comes to MIDI stuff cut straight through the crap and download the freeware called NoteWorthy Composer (click here). You may end up taking a different path, but it's a great place to start.

The discussion above has got pretty detailed. Don't worry about that - it's mostly pretty easy once you take your first couple of steps.

Enjoy
John