dcuny, mentions MuseScore here and for a free program I am extremely impressed and in my opinion is the best free notational program I have seen yet.

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You might have a look at MuseScore, which is a free music notation program. It also supports toggling between notation and concert pitch (in the menu under Notes | Concert Pitch).

I rather like the way Noteflight handles keying in music - it's a more mnemonic based system than most notation programs. It's web-based and has free accounts.

You might also have a look at Notion, a commercial program that comes with a pretty good sound library, and does a pretty good job with playback.



In comparison, I have Sibelius 4 and also Finale 2006. I will not go down the road of which one is best as that is a still ongoing battle between the users of each. It is just a personal preference thing any way as both are extremely good.
However, my point is that MuseScore actually comes very close to them, and I would suggest the creators may even be mimicking some of the attributes of both Sibelius and Finale.

So before actually spending the quite large figure required to purchase Sibelius or Finale, try MuseScore, it will at least give you some idea for free, what you should be able to accomplish with either of the paid for programs.