Newbie question

[Thrillhouse]

I am a EQOA refugee, i leveled my bard to 50 and basically got sick of the game. However, i loved my bard and his abilities. The thing I liked most of all was the ability to do a lot of melee damage and use my songs at the same time. SO what i want to know is, are bards usually in the fray, swinging, thrusting etc wit hweapons or do they just spend most of their time running between mages and melees playing songs?

[Callous]

Basically thrillhouse thats what bards do in ffxi...but people like galkas and elvanns can do more attacking between songs...

[Nyamo]

Don't want to make another topic...
Do bards wear plate armour in ffxi or?
Can you buy all songs for the lvl at store? or do you have to do quest, do monsters drop spell/songs?