After a quiet month on the harbor, amplified outdoor music is back in Oak Bluffs. Selectmen voted to drop the town’s recent, controversial music ban, at least for two weeks, before an overflow crowd of musicians at Tuesday’s board meeting. Music will be allowed at the harborfront bars in Oak Bluffs until 9 p.m. during the next two weeks while the town continues to evaluate its policy on noise.

Dozens of disaffected musicians came on Tuesday to protest the new rules, which were put in place after selectmen received complaints from surrounding businesses and residents about unchecked volume levels at harborfront bars in recent years.

“I think you’ve scared the musicians straight,” said Island musician Brad Tucker. “We know you’re serious now and we’ll all work together. As a musical community we are all really willing to do whatever needs to be done.”

The decision to reverse the ban came after several musicians spoke up about the need for amplification in their performances.

“When you ban amplified music being a piano player I can’t drag a grand piano along with me wherever I play, it’s just not feasible,” said Vineyard pianist Wes Nagy. “So when you ban all amplified music, that means piano players are done . . . I’m out of work and my wife would not like that.”

Still, selectman Gail Barmakian defended a draft bylaw that would outlaw amplified music except for specially permitted events as “middle of the road” in terms of its restrictiveness, pointing to beach communities such as Falmouth, Mashpee and Barnstable that do not allow the practice.

“I haven’t found a town yet that just allows it as a right,” she said.

At one point the discussion became testy when musician Chris Lytle interrupted Ms. Barmakian, calling the ban an “unsophisticated approach” that would in effect “ban culture” in Oak Bluffs.

“Can I interrupt and say that if you’re going to be rude we don’t want to work with you,” said selectman Greg Coogan. “You don’t understand what we’re doing up here, we have a difficult decision, so take us seriously, don’t be rude and we’d love to hear from you.”

Support for the music was not unanimous in the audience. Terry McCarthy, who lives at Dockside and frequently hosts family members, contended that the problem had grown worse of late.

“Over the past four or five years weekly, sometimes three or four times a week we get woken up by the bass,” he said. “It shakes the windows of my building two or three stories removed from the source. We call the police frequently and the police come and, with all due respect, you’ve got a 20-year-old kid standing there saying, ‘That doesn’t sound that bad to me.’ He doesn’t have 70-year-old ears. He doesn’t have the two-year-old baby in a crib trying to sleep. It’s offensive.”

In discussing the harborfront Mr. McCarthy said that there was more at stake than the economic impact on musicians.

“There’s a floating house sitting there paying you money to lower your tax rate and we’re offending them by blowing them out of the water with this music,” he said. One boat that had been docked in the Oak Bluffs harbor for more than 40 years left recently amid complaints about the music.

Mr. Coogan eventually proposed the 9 o’clock curfew for outdoor amplified music, a move that was greeted with applause by the many musicians in attendance and supported by police chief Erik Blake.

“I don’t think you can have music without some amplification with the singers and pianos,” he said. “I agree with that whole sentiment and I would hate to see us block it. I don’t want us to eliminate amplified music because I think it’s too restrictive.”

Mr. Coogan said that if the board continued to receive complaints in the coming weeks they would have no choice but to return to the ban. Selectmen voted 4-1 to approve the new measure with Ms. Barmakian dissenting.

Also on Tuesday selectmen approved a Dixieland band parade through the downtown on August 6 to kick off the Martha’s Vineyard Jazz Festival, which will run from August 6 to 13.