It has been a quiet month on the Oak Bluffs waterfront. In the three weeks since the Oak Bluffs selectmen put the kibosh on outdoor amplified music, Island entertainers have been pushing for the town officials to reconsider. With selectmen set to address the issue again on Tuesday, musicians are hoping to turn around what has been a frustrating start to the summer.

“I don’t know why this is coming down like this at this point right at the beginning of the season when musicians have already scheduled their gigs,” said Jeremy Berlin, a pianist who is a member of Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish. “It kind of came out of nowhere.”

At a May meeting, selectman Gail Barmakian said after receiving complaints from neighbors and business owners and consulting with the police department, she had concluded that noise on the waterfront from amplified music had become problematic.

“It’s evolved into something now where we have to regulate it,” Ms. Barmakian said at the time. Her solution was a draft bylaw that she presented to the board effectively banning the use of outdoor amplified music, except for specially-permitted events. Selectmen eventually agreed to a three-week trial period for the ban which will be revisited at Tuesday’s meeting.

“I’ve tried to come up with something that addresses people’s concerns without hurting the businesses,” Ms. Barmakian said.

But the Island music community views the policy in a different light.

“The Sandbar is doing entertainment every night and afternoon, so that’s $300 to $400, times seven days, times three weeks,” Island musician Mike Benjamin said on Wednesday. “That’s almost $10,000 that didn’t get spread around to some of the local musicians, which is a fair chunk of change. The funny thing is I’ve been playing down there every Sunday for eight years. You’d think if I were getting complaints every single time or there was real trouble someone would have said something by now, but everything I’ve heard is positive.”

He added: “I never knew it was at this crisis point.”

Although musicians have been allowed to play acoustic music during the ban, Mr. Benjamin said that is little consolation. He recounted a conversation he recently held with a bartender following an acoustic unplugged performance at the Sandbar.

“I asked him how did it go and he said it was ridiculous, there was a guy in the corner with an acoustic guitar kind of strumming away but you didn’t hear anything he was singing or playing, you just heard chatter over it. So they’re not going to do that again.”

Both Mr. Berlin and Mr. Benjamin advocate the use of decibel meters at bars to regulate noise, which they say they have seen used at other beach resorts. The same idea was floated by Jeff Farreill, a member of the Oak Bluffs Camp Meeting Association’s board of directors, who spoke about the issue at the May selectman’s meeting. But Ms. Barmakian said the devices were prohibitively expensive. A check online revealed decibel meters range from $20 to several hundred dollars.

Mr. Berlin said he thinks the town’s outdoor entertainment contributes to its unique character.

“In many places I’ve been, music on the waterfront is what contributes to that kind of festival feel of a place,” he said. “I’ve also been to a lot of places where there’s a lot of live music that’s way too loud and way too late and I hate that as much as anyone who lives around the harbor. I think between those two things there’s absolutely room for compromise.”

Town administrator Michael Dutton also said he believes the town can achieve a compromise by adjusting the hours for live entertainment.

“The easiest solution as I see it is if the selectmen want to allow outdoor entertainment they should just restrict the time,” Mr. Dutton said. “It’s a tough issue, our regulations don’t apply very well to the whole town, you have a noise bylaw that doesn’t apply to alcohol establishments, you have another set of noise regulations that do apply to alcohol establishments. Nowhere are there any written regulations that apply to outdoor entertainment. The irony is that you can have a full-fledged rock band outside with amps but the bar still has to keep their doors and windows shut.”

At a recent selectmen’s meeting, Fishbones owner Sean Murphy acknowledged the outdoor music had become a problem and said one boat that had been tying up in the harbor for 48 years had left last year because of increased noise.

“The problem is there are no rules right now, it’s a free-for-all,” Mr. Murphy said.

Mr. Berlin agreed, and said musicians are eager for guidance from the town, short of an outright ban.

“There has to be some accommodation for the culture of enjoyment that the town is trying to promote,” he said. “It’s kind of that puritanical and anachronistic old New England mentality that seems to be rearing its head here.”