There is some general newbie bard info on the wiki that I posted to try and help newer players. It's not a bad starting out point, and if you have more in depth questions I would be happy to answer what I can.

If you read through that, you should have a general idea about bards.

I'd say arial bard is fine in battle, since you can avoid trips and high dex might help with evading a bash or two. A wood elf can do fine as well since they have 24 dex. I'd say humans are the worst in battle just because of the lowest dex among those that can be bards.

Windsong will not give you a very high boost. Likely the same as woodsong for wood elves. If you equate the bagatelle hp as a measuring stick, it gives a total of +2 hp. Which i say is one level, when singing in that terrain.

Battle bards are nice because anthem plus resist is a fair amount of dam redux. I would probably not suggest berserker though the lag reduction might be nice, but thirsting makes nocturne impossible. Defender is good and scout can be depending on how you play the char. I played a high elf scout that was pretty fun, and there is a certain weapon that is really nice for them if you can get it. Problem being you have goodie restrictions, and yes, you will always be targeted and beaten down. But that's almost always the case with bards, they are often the main target because of what they can do.
And do not worry about trip so much as you should bash.