The only Rules As Written way that I'm familiar with would be for a Human illusionist to take the Racial Heritage feat, which says:
Choose another humanoid race. You count as both human and that race for any effects related to race. For example, if you choose dwarf, you are considered both a human and a dwarf for the purpose of taking traits, feats, how spells and magic items affect you, and so on.
This costs you two feats (one for Racial Heritage and the second to take Effortless Trickery).
Note, while the feat is called "Racial Heritage", many GMs will let you re-skin the reason for the feat. Gnomes of Golarion states that Humans and Gnomes can't interbreed but there are limitness reasons you might have this feat, for example...
- Maybe your favorite tutor in university was a seasoned Gnomish illusionist, who took you under his wing and taught you some trade secrets.
- Maybe you received a blessing from a Gnome (or some other fey) who's life you saved.
- Maybe you're a fey foundling, or a human child who was carried away in a burlap sack by gremlins when you didn't eat your brussel sprouts, and spent some of your early childhood in the First World, changing you in subtle ways.
- Maybe you just have a mysterious (never explained) knack for certain things.
EDIT: This can be stretched further (with GM permission, as always) by playing a character of any race with angelic heritage. Aasimar's Scion of Humanity alternate race trait says:
An aasimar with this racial trait counts as an outsider (native) and a humanoid (human) for any effect related to race, including feat prerequisites and spells that affect humanoids.
...Which means Aasimar Scions of Humanity qualify for the Racial Heritage feat. Note also that Aasimar can be of any race, and that:
Non-human aasimars have the same statistics as human aasimars with the exception of size. Thus a halfling aasimar is Small but otherwise possesses the same statistics and abilities as a human aasimar—the difference is purely cosmetic.
Some GMs will understandably rule this differently (I think it's quite cheesy without a very good story behind it) but rules as written this means one can play an aasimar who's an elf, halfling, or dwarf with distant angelic heritage, take the Scion of Humanity alternate trait, and then take Racial Heritage to open up the feats of another race (like gnomes).
Only indirectly are rules provided for creating an item that takes a swift action to activate
The section Creating Magic Items says
Using metamagic feats, a caster can place spells in items at a higher level than normal.
Thus, by incorporating a spell modified by the metamagic feat Quicken Spell into the creation of a custom magic item (therefore substantially increasing one or more prerequisite spells' effective levels therefore the item's market price), the item could possibly be activated as a swift action. Like all custom magic items, however, actually creating such an item hinges upon the GM, but this is, at least, a starting point for negotiations.
Examples of existing items that have as a creation prerequisite the feat Quicken Spell include the spell totem, which is like a minor ring of spell storing except that the wearer can take a swift action to use a stored spell when the wearer assumes animal form, and (with a different kind of activation time yet a similar and interesting effect) the ring of vengeful blood magic, which allows a bloodraging wearer thrice per day to cast as an attack of opportunity a 3rd-level-or-less casting-time-of-1-standard-action-or-less spell.
(Many magic items take a swift action to activate without needing the feat Quicken Spell as a creation prerequisite. However, no guidelines exist for creating these besides, as always, comparing them to existing items.)
Best Answer
Singing Steel special material
The new Adventurer's Armory 2 includes a new special material called Singing Steel. This new material includes this ability:
This works because of this line, making Raging Song count as Bardic Performance:
Singing Steel also increases the maximum Dexterity bonus by 1, reduces the arcane spell failure by 5%, and reduces the Armor Check Penalty by 1 if used to make armor, or counts as alchemical silver for a weapon.
This is the only way I can find to reduce the action required to start a bardic performance/raging song.
I've come across another item that technically allows you to reduce the action needed to start a bardic performance/raging song.
Perfect Tuning Fork is a one time use 600gp item that allows you to reduce the action.