THIS issue of Empirical Musicology Review comprises two main articles representing the fields of music and media studies as well as music psychology. Gruhn, Ristmägi, Schneider, D'Souza, and Kiilu, examined how participants with absolute pitch assess tones that deviate from standard pitches, examining the roles of musical training and memory, among other factors. In the accompanying commentaries, Schlemmer finds this work methodologically sound, and argues that it corresponds with much of the previous literature on the role of memory on absolute pitch. Jakubowski's commentary pushes for more work on psychometric instruments to examine AP, as well as more long-term longitudinal studies.

Also in this issue, Kock and Louven work toward a methodological framework for sound design. They explored emotions induced in participants viewing short videos presented with no-audio and with both audio and visual stimuli. They found that sound effects play a significant role in the immersion of a video, and the suspense that the listeners feel. Tan's commentary, while lauding the strides made in empirical approaches to film music research argues that the notions of "suspense" and "immersion" are quite multi-faceted, and more research should be done in this area. Herget's commentary places the Kock and Louven's work within a larger context of research, and also argues that more work is needed on the specific variables examined.

Niels Chr. Hansen provides a commentary on Sun and Cuthbert (Empirical Musicology Review, Vol. 12, 3-4, 2017), which investigated the emotional contents of lyrics in the Wikifonia dataset. Hansen argues for a more hypothesis-driven approach in future work and discusses the limits of exploratory corpus studies. Lastly, David John Baker provides a book review of Coughing and Clapping: Investigating the Audience Experience edited by Burland and Pitts, providing an overview of many of the central themes in the volume, while arguing for more empirical work focusing on audience responses and engagement.