How fast a sound changes dictates how wide its spectral bandwidth must be.

Evidence

This argument can be reversed to show that when the output of an acous­ tic system, such as a musical instrument, changes slowly then its spec­ trum occupies a narrow bandwidth, whereas when it changes quickly then it must occupy a larger bandwidth. This can be due to an increase in the number of harmonics present in the spectrum, as would be the case if the waveform becomes sharper or more spiky. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 487

Categorization

• QUESTION: Suggests a perceptual corollary worth chasing: could the listener decode an event’s temporal character purely from spectral spread?
• XREF: connects to: A sound’s time-domain rate of change determines its frequency-domain bandwidth — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 489