Infinity is a very, very large value indeed, that's best handled as an abstract concept, rather than trying to understand it.
Think of the largest number that you can imaging ... say a digit followed by a million zeros, or the number of atoms in the universe.
In comparison with infinity, those numbers are a close approximation to zero.

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The post earlier that said 2048 is OK for Western music with 12 tones per scale. 2048 is 2^11, which is all the possible two-or more combinations of notes in sequence.
Eastern and middle eastern scales often have microtones, so have more that 12 notes per octave, so the number of feasible scales would be significantly higher.
That also ignores the possiblity of scales that span more than an octave ... and is there any real reason why they should not?

Mario's guitar book's 17 scales you should know are plenty for most of us; too many for lots of us. The two diminished scales are, of course, actually the same thing, varying only by where one starts them.

Don't get hung up on them!
Edit: I.e. ... what Matt said.

Last edited by Gordon Scott; 08/16/22 12:19 AM.
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