How does the drum produce sound?
Hitting a drum pushes down the the drum head, which acquires potential energy from the hit. The drum head then vibrates back and forth, until the energy has been dissipated. The vibration of the drum head creates pressure waves in the surrounding air, which is essentially what sound is. The pressure wave characteristics describe the sound that is heard, amplitude (harder the hit, the more the drum head flexes) affects the volume sound, higher frequency (which depends on the tension of the drum head) affects the pitch of the drum (from the low frequency bass drum to the high frequency snare).
