Originally Posted by genuine_fake

Since I love bards so much, I figured I would help all you who are looking for a gain guide out. Keep in mind it is best to train Music up to 100 (you can simply double click an instrument to train this up if you wish), then work on the other skills, due to the Music check that is performed before every bard attempt.

All bard skills gain depending on Bard difficulty, so this list should work for discord, provoke, and peacing. Use non-exceptional instruments. I always bought 20 at a time from the NPC carpenter. This is a list of non-magical, easy to manage pets to practice on:

Buy skill up to 30 using NPC
30-50 Polar Bears
50-60 Frenzied Ostards
60-70 Scorpions
70-80 Giant Beetles (Blue mountable ones)
80-85 Lesser Hiryus (try to get ones with high bard difficulty)
85-90ish Greater Hiryus

90s and up your only option is really Cu Sidhes if you want a non magical target. After GM it can get really slow. Try to get friends with trained Cu Sidhes to let you practice on their pets for a while. Remember that if you have a high chance of succeeding that you will not gain as easily, so sometimes it helps to drop your Musicianship a bit to make it harder to succeed. I would never drop it lower than 90, because you will get the message "You play poorly, and there is no effect" too often.

Good luck!