Mystery #3Tier 2sound and vibration

How does whacking a stretched drum skin fill the room with a boom?

Give a drum a good whack and a boom fills the whole room, loud enough to feel in your chest. Your stick touches the skin for the tiniest moment, then leaves. Yet the sound rolls out and reaches every corner. How does one quick hit on a stretched skin turn into a sound that fills the air?

A brightly painted drum with its taut skin and a wooden beater resting on top, ropes zigzagging round the shell to pull the skin tight — Photo: Auckland Museum · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Your guess

What's your guess? How does a quick hit on a drum skin end up as a booming sound?

There's no single magic word to type, have a go in your own words, then reveal the answer to see how close you got.

Make a guess to unlock the hints and the answer.