What is eardrum?

The eardrum is like a tiny drum that lives inside your ear and helps you hear sounds.

Imagine you have a toy drum. When you hit it with your hands, the skin on top moves back and forth. That’s how sound travels from the drum to your ears. Your eardrum works in a similar way, when sound waves come into your ear, they make the eardrum move, which sends signals to your brain so you can hear.

Your eardrum is like a thin, stretched-out piece of plastic that lives at the end of your ear canal. It’s right where your outer ear meets your middle ear. When sound waves come in, like when someone speaks or music plays, they hit the eardrum and make it vibrate (move back and forth). These vibrations are then passed on to little bones inside your ear, which help send the sound messages all the way to your brain.

Think of your eardrum as a happy dancer in a big party, every time there's music, it starts dancing and tells your brain what song is playing!