Good news..The Math says it all!

[IanR]

I thought the guy was very interesting.

What I heard him say was even though there might be a large but finite number of songs we can write (depending on the many ways we might count them), humans don't really care and keep on writing the same songs over and over anyway. 

Even though there is a massive sonic palette we might obtain our raw materials from, we stay with the familiar because that's what we like.

I think there is a lot of truth in this.  Its why there is the term "popular music".

I was pleased a little while back when I played a rough demo of a song I wrote to my son and he said that it sounded like a Ron Sexsmith song.  It was exactly what I was going for.

cheers,

Ian