Yeah, barding can be rough since almost everything of interest is at 160 difficulty. I remedy this a couple of ways. First, I always carry an exceptional instrument and all 6 super slayers. The super slayers provide 20% bonus to their respective types, and the exception provides 10%, which I use for monsters without a slayer type. I also carry a hare sash, minstrel talisman, the barding gloves with +5 to all bard skills, and +disco jewelry. If the monster is a tough target, I run away, throw my bard suit on, disco it and switch back to my fighting suit. The disco, once established, will stay active as long as you are not out of sight for ~15sec. Also, don't underestimate Provo, it shines in multiple areas. Provo wrecks ore elementals and bard mobs. Bard mobs are particularly fun, provo a bard mob and it will end up engaging everything in the area.
Additionally, I would suggest staying in Vampire's Embrace from the Necromancy book. This provides a ton of healing. Also get an auto-bandage routine set up. For this I use EasyUO, so that it doesn't interact with any of my Razor/UOSteam macros. Once you get it setup, you can leave it on 100% of the time, makes a lot of difference. Especially, if you get high anat/healing and ~165 dex for 4sec heals. If you need more healing, incorporate Curse Weapon from the Necromancy book as well.
Not a problem!