Deep below Harvard Square, beyond rattling turnstiles and the vendors hawking popcorn and roasted nuts, Gary Innocent strums a guitar while softly singing French ballads. His audiences come and go - and come and go - as rumbling red subway trains punctuate his songs.

Mr. Innocent is one of hundreds of subway musicians who are as much a fixture on Boston's underground platforms as the rats which skitter along the tracks and the commuters tugging on hats and gloves as they swarm out of trains.

But next week, much of the crooning will cease, and the only subterranean music may be the subways' screeching wheels and the chimes that warn of train doors sliding shut. Starting Dec. 1, subway musicians will no longer be allowed to plug their instruments into electronic amplifiers or play electric keyboards, saxophones, and other horns.

Transit officials say it's a matter of safety - that loud music can drown out messages warbled over public-address speakers. But musicians and their fans say the regulations could dry up the income artists collect, a dollar at a time, and silence songs that make commuting bearable - or at least distract passengers from the strain and stench of subway life.

The rules are sure to transform Boston's true underground music scene, which up to this point has been one of the nation's least regulated. In New York and Atlanta, musicians must audition and sign up for slots; Toronto singers pay a $114 fee; in London, musicians need licenses to croon to commuters "minding the gap." And in Washington, D.C., they're banned altogether: The only songs in travelers' heads are those they're singing to themselves. For Boston musicians, these free-wheeling subway stages were a last foothold of melodic latitude - theirs for a song.

Or almost. Playing Harvard Square's "T" station requires a permit, renewable every three months - and a little loose change. Musicians flip a coin each morning to decide who performs on the most coveted stage: the platform where travelers wait on their way downtown.

The coin-flip winner may be a local music-college student, a blind veteran, or a self-taught guitarist who doubles as a short-order cook. Pop star Tracy Chapman sang underground here while a student at Tufts.

For many commuters, as well as musicians, the rules are a cacophonous shock. Haitian peasant songs, banjo bluegrass, and Joni Mitchell ballads "make the commute much more enjoyable," says Dawn Aberg, a student in Cambridge. "Some of the most exciting music being done comes up from the bottom."

The Subway Performers Program Policy mandates more than unplugged amplifiers: Musicians must pay $25 for a yearly permit, wear "proper clothing," and display photo-ID badges at all times.

"You can't help but think [the rationale] is a pretense," says Mac Craven in the Park Street station under Boston Common. "The [MBTA] messages are garbled anyway."

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