There is one piece of music that I have studied so much that it is the

first thing that came to mind when looking at Steins six steps for
analysis. That would be the wind arrangement of Johann De Meijs Lord
of the Rings symphony. In particular, the first movement, titled
Gandalf. In my third year of undergraduate studies, our conducting
class required the study of and performance of the piece for our
professor. Our professor gave us a useful technique for score study:
color-coding. After making copies of the original score, I used a
different color for each musical event happening. The most important,
of course, is finding the melody, or focal point. A perfect example in
the piece is the transition to the Halifax portion in the middle of the
piece. The Timpani, however repetitive the passage is (mainly
dominant to tonic), this is the melody, and the winds accompany.
Although I didnt learn to physically perform each instruments part, I
became much more aware of the piece in terms of where the focal
point is, where the transitional (and modulations harmonically)
passages are, and where repeated harmonic passages can be (such as
the same motif in a different key). From a music theory perspective,
this knowledge of the piece can help me determine where modulations
occur, and the true sonority of the chords, particularly in a piece
written in the later half of the twentieth century with ambiguous
harmonies.