I'm not very proficient at the mechanical process of writing out music.

So I browsed a bit on the Internet and discovered a FREE music notation program - Finale Note Pad. I don't have the site at hand, but a simple search should take you there.

I have no connection with this company.

Bob

Yep. I started with the free one (Note Pad) and eventually bought PrintMusic since I wanted more features. Good stuff!

I found the free version of Finale Notepad very slow and cumbersome to use. There are also several things it can't do (or I was not able to figure out how to do), such as putting a half note and a quarter note on the same stem.

It does offer basic funtionality. It is free. It's worth every penny. I was not sufficiently impressed to buy any of Finale's better products.

Both Finale and Sibelius offer free "demo" programs that show all the features but won't allow you to save your file or print more than the first page.
Doesn't sound TOO useful, I know for serious people BUT they can both be easily hacked into 3-minute Egg timers.

Finale Note Pad is a fully functional program - not a demo - and it's free.

Bob

i'm with Bob, because i use Finale Notepad too. it is not demo.

The other freeware out there is Noteworthy Composer. It might be a bit more intuitive than Finale Notepad starting out. I have both, and paid the shareware price for Noteworthy also. I use mostly Noteworthy because it allows save to MIDI format, and Finale Notepad doesn't.

The software I use is GNU Lilypond: http://lilypond.org/. It produces the nicest output I've seen.

However, this may be rather intimidating for those who are not so proficient with computers.

Finale Notepad Plus ($25) has midi conversion capacity, as i remember.