Hi, Margarita -

Let me repeat those links for stuff that will help:
ABCMUS (click here), a program that will play ABC tunes.
John in Brisbane's ABC Guide - the best I've seen, but he may be embarrassed to hear that.
NoteWorthy Composer which is a complete MIDI program for making, playing, and printing music.

ABCMUS and Noteworthy install themselves - all you do is click on the file that you've downloaded, and they'll do the rest. If you have Windows 95 or 98, there will be an icon for them under "programs" that you access from your "start" button. Once you've started running any Windows program worth its salt, click on the "help" menu on the menu bar at the top of your screen, and explore what that help menu offers you. Also explore all the menus up there, and you'll often find lots of things are pretty self-explanatory. NoteWorthy has provided many sample files for you to play with, and those samples will also teach you many of the things you can do with the program. NoteWorthy saves files in its own NWC format that includes lyrics and other nice things that are advanced beyond what MIDI files can do. If you want to work on a MIDI file with Noteworthy, you have to go to the "file" menu and "import" the MIDI file (identified as somethingoranother.mid. Once you've fooled around with the file and added lyrics and stuff, Noteworthy will want to save the file as somethingoranother.nwc unless you "export" it as a MIDI file.
I guess I think I'm pretty good with this computer stuff, but I haven't learned this stuff in classes, and I've read only one computer book. Most people who use computers well learn by playing around with software, exploring all the menu options to see what they do. If I have to take a class or read a big book to learn how to use a piece of software, it's probably a lousy piece of software. ABCMUS and NoteWorthy composer are very good - just explore them and play around, and you'll be amazed how quickly you learn. If you have trouble, click on "help." You may also want to click on the "help" menu that comes up when you hit the "start" button on Windows 95/98 - there's lots of good stuff there.
Have fun, Margarita.
-Joe Offer (who doesn't mind at all if you're a Republican)-