 In this hierarchy of the arts, music’s value is superior even to that of tragedy. According to Schopenhauer, music is not a representation of Ideas, but rather of the Will itself. Music and the world are expressions of the same metaphysical principle, the Will. This motivates Schopenhauer’s remark that music could exist even if there were no world at all (1819: §52). If music is an expression of the Will just as the world is, and given that the Will objectifies itself in the world through the Platonic Ideas, one can trace a parallel between music and degrees of objectivation of the Will. Particularly, Schopenhauer sets up an analogy between pitch range and degrees of objectivation. Thus, the lowest areas of the audible pitch range are associated with the lowest degrees, such as inorganic nature and physical forces, whereas the higher regions of the pitch range match with the highest level of objectivation of the Will, self-conscious human beings. Schopenhauer motivates this analysis through a rather audacious interpretation of both acoustics and music theory. This series of correspondences between music and the extra-musical world is reminiscent of the Pythagorean notion of celestial harmony (see the entry  history of western philosophy of music: from antiquity to 1800, section 1.1).  Schopenhauer questionably and conveniently identifies high pitch with melody. This is questionable because the melodic element in music is not determined by pitch range, but rather by relational properties, nor is a melody always composed of the highest notes in a given piece. It is convenient, because the parallel between pitch range and degrees of objectivation allows Schopenhauer to consider the unfolding of a melody as analogous to human emotional life. Much as human life is characterized by an alternation of need and satisfaction, melodies feature continuous shifts from tension to relaxation. The emotions we encounter in music have a peculiar status: they are neither particular, for they are beyond the principium individuationis, nor general, as they are not abstracted from particular cases as concepts are, and cannot therefore be captured linguistically.