there are only so many combinations of musical notes in existence. So how have we not run out yet?

Question

there are only so many combinations of musical notes in existence. So how have we not run out yet?

In: Other

Answer 1

Well I’m not a music person so my verbiage and musical jargon will be non existence. But looking a just a numbers stand point we would need the amount of notes for the average song. But let’s assume it’s 100 notes, music goes off of letter scaling, A-G, 7 (not including those one kind) different notes can be played, and each one of them can be played in 6 or so ways (whole note, quarter note, and so on).

So you would multiply 6 *7= 42

Now you have 42 options per note of your 100 note song. So 42^100 = 2.113144e+162 is the amount of possible variations in this 100 note song. So yes it’s possible to run out, but it’s also not including different instruments and some notes and pauses and blah blah blah. But it’s a large number.

People smarter then me please correct or add in the wording.