Most instruments occupy only a portion of the audible frequency range

Evidence

The first way of minimizing the effect is to recognize that many musical instruments do not cover the whole of the audible frequency range. Few instruments have a fundamental frequency that extends to the lowest frequency in the audible range, and many of them do not produce harmonics or components that extend to the upper frequencies of the audible range. Therefore, in theory, one can filter these instruments such that only the frequencies present are passed with no audible effect. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2408

The first way of minimizing the effect is to recognize that many musi­ cal instruments do not cover the whole of the audible frequency range. Few instruments have a fundamental frequency that extends to the lowest fre­ quency in the audible range and many of them do not produce harmonics or components that extend to the upper frequencies of the audible range. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 2391

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The ear’s restricted useful band is exactly the kind of background fact the ‘Grafting & Growth’ essay’s argument about unused bandwidth could extend — an acoustic analogue of unused vertical space.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2408; David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 2391