Mallet hardness and strike location shape which drum modes get excited

Evidence

The player does then have some control over the output spectrum from a kettledrum depending on where it is struck. Note that a strike in the center is not very satisfactory in terms of the resulting sound because almost all of the first 10 modes have nodes in the center, and therefore they will tend not to be excited. Another form of control is from the use of different mallets. Small, hard mallets produce a large excitation that is focused over a small area and therefore can excite a number of modes extending to high frequencies, while the excitation from large, soft mallets is somewhat muffled, duller and less strong due to it being spread over a larger area, thereby tending to excite more strongly the lower frequency modes. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1307

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concretely illustrates how excitation area versus focus determines which modes get excited — a core psychoacoustic/acoustic mechanism relevant to listening for why hits sound different.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1307