# First letter of artist?
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/first-letter-of-artist/1179
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [July 31, 2004, 1:59pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/first-letter-of-artist/1179 "2004-07-31T13:59:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@haze](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/haze)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2004, 1:59pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/first-letter-of-artist/1179/1 "2004-07-31T13:59:18Z")
Would it be possible to include a variable that's the first letter of the artist's name? I'd like to sort my music as
Music\Letter\Artist\Year - Album\Track - Title
which would be great 🙂
---
### Author:  [@Sebastian\_Mares](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Sebastian_Mares)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2004, 3:02pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/first-letter-of-artist/1179/2 "2004-07-31T15:02:25Z")
Hi there!
You can use the _$left()_ function for doing so:
```
Music\$left("%artist%",1)\\%year% - %album%\\%track% - %title%
```
Use _$num("%track%",2)_ for track numbers with a leading zero.
Regards,
Sebastian Mares
---
### Author:  [@haze](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/haze)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2004, 6:03pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/first-letter-of-artist/1179/3 "2004-07-31T18:03:10Z")
Thanks ever so much 🙂
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### Author:  [@areve](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/areve)
#### Post date: [August 4, 2004, 2:05pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/first-letter-of-artist/1179/4 "2004-08-04T14:05:57Z")
You have to be careful with the _$left()_ function with band names starting by _The_ or with first and last names:
-The Beatles will be under T while you might want it under B
-John Lennon will be under J while you might want it under L
I personnally use the _genre_ tag to put the first letter of the artist, as I find the genre classification completely useless.
---
### Author:  [@haze](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/haze)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2004, 11:36am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/first-letter-of-artist/1179/5 "2004-11-21T11:36:56Z")
Decided to bump my old thread to ask a quick question. Is it possible to have underscores instead of spaces in the filename, but not in the tag? I've had a poke round in the options but I can't seem to find anything.
Thanks in advance 🙂
---
### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [November 21, 2004, 12:22pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/first-letter-of-artist/1179/6 "2004-11-21T12:22:33Z")
You can create a [new action](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/967/1) Replace for _\_FILENAME_ which replaces spaces by underscores.
Best regards,
~ Florian