I am one of those people that believes the spells should be consumed by bardic music. But I imagine this occurring in different ways. One would be to eliminate spells and expand bardic music into awesome and varying abilities. I like this option the best, because it could lead to the bard becoming the master of buffs, giving him a real focus where he/she will shine. Another would be two adapt bard spells and bardic music into a special spell system like in the Book of Eldritch Might by Monte Cook. This is interesting but I think could lead to a great class but it needs to be done well or it will be just like the bard being a full caster.
For the actual implementation of Bardic Music, whether it is changed like I have outlined above or not, I would strongly recommend some sort of change. All bardic music should require skill in a type of perform, but a bard should automatically gain ranks in two perform skills at each level. if the player wishes to be able to use more than two different types of perform, the player can do so. A bard should be able to activate a song as a move action and it should last for two rounds after the bard stops performing. This could be interesting, because if bardic music is focused upon and spells removed, then bards will almost always be singing and fighting at the same time, thereby making it more fun for players. To allow players to spend more time buffing, the player can perform can continue performing two songs at once if he/she is using 2 different perform types that can be used simultaneously. A bard also can only have 2 songs affecting each person. Therefore, if the bard only has songs and no spells, the bard ahs to ecide if he/she wants to spends ome bardic music uses to sing again but only for the casters to give them a bonus to overcome SR, but the bard cannot just sing as much as possible and sing each song with no strategy involved, because only 2 songs can affect each person at once.
I just made this up on the spot and wrote this quickly, so does anyone have nay thoughts on this complicated and probably not well thought out idea?