Pool players are slapping cues against balls at the Governor Bradford, while friendly Ms. Pac-Man and foosball competitions are going on and drinkers talk above one another. Another sound suddenly explodes above the usual barroom din — a rock ’n’ roll band seems to have taken over the drag karaoke stage. But that’s not what’s happening at all.

Provincetown native John Silva started Open Mic Night at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays at the Governor Bradford last winter, and it’s starting to gain traction — and fans. Silva, who has been selling and building sound systems, including the one at the now-defunct Club Euro in Provincetown, and DJing for years, started playing drums when he was five. Music defines his life.

“It was my way of expression, I guess,” he says. “It was my therapy, a release in energy.”

Silva has decided to bring that feeling back by pulling out his electric guitar for Open Mic Night, which he also hosts. “It’s king of quiet in the wintertime, and it’s something I wanted to do for the musical people here,” Silva says. “The thing of it is that there are a lot of good musicians here and there and everywhere, but everyone does their own thing.”

Guitarist-songwriter-drummer Peter Tighe, who has played with just about every local band and all over, comes out on Tuesdays to play at Silva’s Open Mic Night, because, he says, it’s important to support new regular events. “There was kind of a scene like this in the early days,” Tighe says. “People would just come in and sit in and play.”

Which is exactly what happens at the Bradford’s Open Mic. Each musician — and each writer or comedian — gets his or her turn onstage, and later, the musicians join forces to produce the most rock ’n’ roll open mic in town. Thirty-five-year-old Chris Wilcox is one of the regulars who wails on his guitar and sings. This open mic is vital, he says, because it’s more relaxed than others in town and it’s a great place to just jam.

Michael Dreyer was a jazz drummer before a car accident damaged his right arm, leaving him unable to hit the skins for a year. During that time, he picked up a guitar to use as therapy, and now kills it on both.

“I bring original music. I’m here to put my thumbprint on Provincetown,” Dreyer says. “The reason I come to Open Mic Night is to find that connection, that communication, between artists that I’m always looking for.”

And that is just what he has found. When Dreyer sits on the drums, and Silva, Tighe and Wilcox jam out on guitars and trade leads and vocals, the sound isn’t impromptu. It is sheer musicianship, which works because they listen to each other and react to the sound.

Silva decided to hold Open Mic at the Bradford because of barkeep Hale Bryant, and because, he says, “What else is open?” There aren’t too many places that hold events on Tuesday nights during the winter, and all those involved in Open Mic Night believe that this will grow and, possibly, become year-round. More musicians — and fans — are always welcome.

“Once people get hip that it’s here and it’s friendly enough, then they’ll start coming out,” Tighe says.