Every piece has a hardest part.
Identifying the hardest part is crucial to success. In recent pieces I’ve conducted, the hardest part has been:
- a modulation
- a metric modulation
- a syncopated melody
- subtle variations using the same lyrics
- the length of the piece
- holding tonality during accompaniment breaks
- harmonic richness
- the sense of time
- voice crossing
- syllabic stress
- memorization
- tuning
Most of those attributes are a part of virtually every piece. But one will be the hardest part, and will demand extra attention. My “score study” involves less of the traditional pieces (harmonic analysis, marking cues, phrasing and dynamics) and more time spent trying to know before I start what the hardest part will be.
Knowing that will save you so much effort and frustration later.