While it might be a bit of a leap to imagine a stretchy-eared, sleeve-tattooed, puffy-bearded metal dude teaching music to school kids, I’ve definitely heard of metal musicians funding their art with stranger pursuits. For a regular salary, healthcare and a chance to impart your musical knowledge onto today’s youth, why not? The Music National Service, a non-profit, is offering musicians exactly that opportunity through a new initiative called MusicianCorps.

A week ago I highlighted the struggle all musicians face in finding affordable healthcare, and the MusicianCorps program ties nicely into this ongoing discussion. MusicianCorps, is a “domestic musical peace corps” that provides musicians with a living stipend, healthcare and professional development while they teach for a year in under-resourced public schools. The program is running in four cities – SF/Oakland Bay Area, Chicago, New Orleans and Seattle – where twenty MusicianCorps Fellows are serving full-time in public schools, parks and recreation centers, children’s and veteran’s hospitals, public housing communities and elsewhere.

Check out the above MSNBC feature on MusicianCorps, and read more about the program at the MusicianCorps website. It’s not like you’d have the school marching band play “Fucked with a Knife” at the football game half-time show, but I can think of few things more potentially exhilarating than passing the knowledge and joy of music onto a new generation.

-VN