About this Journal

Empirical Musicology Review (EMR) aims to provide an international forum promoting the understanding of music in all of its facets. In particular, EMR aims to facilitate communication and debate between scholars engaged in systematic and observation-based music scholarship. Debate is promoted through publication of commentaries on research articles.

Scope

EMR publishes original research articles, commentaries, editorials, book reviews, interviews, letters, and data sets. Suitable topics include music history, performance, theory, education, and composition -- with an emphasis on systematic methods, such as hypothesis-testing, modeling, and controlled observation. Submissions pertaining to social, political, cultural and economic phenomena are welcome. Theoretical and speculative articles are welcome provided they contribute to the forming of empirically testable hypotheses, models or theories, or they provide critiques of methodology. 

History

EMR was founded by David Huron and David Butler in 2004 and began publishing in January 2006. The editorial process for EMR pioneers a new "Public Peer Review" practice that is intended to encourage scholarly dialog and reward reviewers for timely and thoughtful engagement with submissions. Previous editors include David Butler, William Forde Thompson, Peter Keller, Nicola Dibben, Renee Timmers, and Daniel Shanahan. The current editors are Niels Chr. Hansen and Daniel Müllensiefen

Special Issue Call for Papers

David Huron (1954-2025) was a pivotal figure in the development of the field of empirical musicology, with pathbreaking work in empirical methodologies, music and emotion research with a special focus on musical sadness, music as ethological signal, the influence of perceptual constraints on voice-leading, the psychology of musical expectation, computational musicology and corpus methodologies, for which he developed the Humdrum toolkit, among many other research interests. He authored almost 200 articles and several influential books, and trained numerous music researchers. He also co-founded Empirical Musicology Review with David Butler in 2004.

EMR is pleased to announce a call for papers for a special issue commemorating the academic legacy of David Huron. Submissions following the journal’s usual formats will be welcome, including articles and data reports. We will also consider special commentaries on articles published by David Huron or book reviews of any of his books.

Extra consideration will be given to authors who worked closely with David Huron. Additionally, contributions that intersect significantly with his oeuvre will be preferred. This could take several forms including: testing hypotheses that he proposed; replicating his empirical findings; or extending and applying his theories beyond their original context.

In your submission, please include a cover letter (max 350 words) that briefly a) describes your professional relationship with David Huron and b) outlines in what ways your contribution intersects with his oeuvre.

The deadline for consideration for this special issue is March 1, 2026. Informal correspondence or queries are welcome if you have questions about what may be appropriate for this special issue.