Shattered Kingdoms

No need for it to raise hell. Give bash far more powerful penalties, or even tune-stopping altogether, but let the bard have the ability to hit chords while in prone. They may not be able to carry a tune properly after being bashed to the ground, but there's no reason they shouldn't to hit a chord just as well as a skilled mage with combat casting abilities.

Except that there is no 'combat tune-playing' ability.

Songs should remain as they used to be: If while tripped you maintain the concentration to sing them, you should keep singing them. You should only stop singing if you can't maintain the concentration in doing so. Songs are infused with magic (and thus the magical results) and that's why you need the concentration (on the magical focus part thing of singing). However, you don't need magic TO sing the songs.

No need for one. Chords are a bards equivalent of screaming. We're not talking about a tune here.

Is that in the help file? Reading it myself, it looks as though it's the result of a well-trained and finely tuned voice. If you tackled an opera singer belting out their loudest note, they'd stop singing it immediately.

While I agree with you, casters also have to do a perfect recitation of their spells for them to work. So, if casters can cast their spells, then the same should be true for bards (haven't played a caster since the change).

Casters pause mid-cast, and continue to cast after they are no longer prone.

I could accept that being the case for bards. Nobody else can use their skills while prone, neither should bards be able to.

Sure, if you caught them in the middle of doing it, that might happen, but you've got your cause and effect mixed up. The idea is that the singer is able to do this after being sent prone.

Unlike a song, c major is a chord, a short progression of notes, and does not require carrying a tune.

"C Major is the first chord a bard learns during training. Emphasizing
technique over power, this chord produces a narrow cone of sound which can be aimed at a single creature. While creating pain in listeners, C Major can also cause items made out of certain materials to shatter."

Though obviously not reflected in reality, it's strong implied that this progression of notes while emphasizing technique over power, has a pitch capable of causing pain and shattering stuff. Perhaps that's more about the magic than the pitch, but the helpfile doesn't say. When manifested, it is presented as a single targetted strike. This is why it presents itself to me as a scream of sorts. Anyway, if they're masters of this technique, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to belt it out the way a combat-trained mage peels off a spell after being knocked down. Unlike the caster, they aren't being interrupted. Again, the difference between 'song' and 'chord'.

Okay, knock an opera singer down, and while he's bouncing around on the ground and you're kicking him in the face, tell him (or her) to belt out a tune for you.

As long as bards are being treated equally as casters, in this case, then no big deal.