Ciaran 
Senior Moderator
友情は魔法だ
Where I know the artist I am looking for, I use:
artist:name AND NOT (artist:artist:a\* OR artist:b\* OR artist:c\* OR artist:d\* OR artist:e\* OR artist:f\* OR artist:g\* OR artist:h\* OR artist:i\* OR artist:j\* OR artist:k\* OR artist:l\* OR artist:m\* OR artist:n\* OR artist:o\* OR artist:p\* OR artist:q\* OR artist:r\* OR artist:s\* OR artist:t\* OR artist:u\* OR artist:v\* OR artist:w\* OR artist:x\* OR artist:y\* OR artist:z\*)
Remember to remove the character the actual artist you are searching for. And not that this won’t handle instances of two artists with the same first letter in their name, but it’s a start.
Finding something like count(artist:*) has been on the to-do list for awhile, but there’s no guess as to when it might be possible.
… hmmm having trouble formatting it - the \* should just be *.
