Question

A musician hits a drum with a drumstick. In three to four sentences, explain the collision
forces between the drum and drumstick.

Answer 1

When the stick strikes the drumhead the contact produces a large, brief normal force: the drumhead pushes on the stick and the stick pushes equally and oppositely on the drum (Newton’s third law). That force is time‑varying — a short impulsive pulse whose magnitude and shape depend on the relative speed, the stiffness and damping of the stick and membrane, and the contact area — and the impulse (integral of force over contact time) changes the momenta of stick and drumhead. The force deforms the head and launches its vibrational modes (producing sound) while some energy is dissipated as heat; small tangential frictional forces can add shear or torsion that slightly alter the rebound and timbre.