479,001,600 is 12 factorial (12!) as already mentioned in another comment. It's a big number, but the meaning of it is the number of ways to arrange 12 notes in different orders, assuming you always use all of them. So you could e.g. write this many melodies, where each note must occur exactly once. I think, this number is not so relevant in this context because he talks a lot about different scales. The chromatic scale where you can use all of the notes, is just 1 scale. To calculate how many scales are there for a 12 note system, I think it makes sense to not consider transpositions and to distinguish between completely different scales and their related modes. You can do this for 7-note scales, 8-note scales, or any number between 0-12. The sum of "really different" scales and their modes is only in the hundrets to thousands. This method provides "all the different chords" as well, but of course you can then vary the voicing and register to get many more. There's infinite possibilities to make music, I hope everyone agrees on that.

An incredible post !!! Thank you! Why can't I ever get such remarkably gifted teachers like this that can communicate, explain things so well, have such a comptehensive depth of their subject matter knowlege,, and they can play their instrument so extremely well. ❤

9:23 "doesn't make a lot of sense but he always seems to choose the right note even if it doesn't make sense" uhhh that doesn't really inspire confidence in the legitimacy of this music lol. Honestly when I hear explanations like this it really doesn't help me respect or appreciate this genre of music, as inaccessible as it already is...hopefully someone can clarify though

wow the sound of that cello tho! what make? music is infinite because it exists in a dimension of time. 479, 001,600 possible combinations. but then figure what those combinations are with time added differently for each of those 479, 001,600! Literally infinite possibilities.