Marching band is one of the most diverse groups on campus, at least at Cal Poly, and through this you learn to work as a team with people who are different from you to achieve a common goal.

So did the musicians’ marching band backgrounds. Hubbard played trumpet in Sarah T. Reed High School’s marching band and in Southern’s Human Jukebox. Moss was a Southern drum major.

The trumpet player, now 16, wanted to follow in his percussionist brother’s footsteps and join one of his high school’s bands, specifically the Southmoore High School marching band.

Dionne Randolph has curated the marching band lineup for the Krewe of Muses, the all-female group that hosts the popular parade, for 25 years. For her, Carnival is a restorative time.

Thomas Burhorn, the trumpet player who founded MEUTE, said he came up with the idea for the group after attending a rave. “I thought about the energy of a marching band and what would happen if ...