This post will bring us current, though finding a truly great guitarist is now melded with social media and hidden gems. I am uncertain what this list will consist of. I'll be taking the journey with you. I am off to grab up some great guitarists. It may take a bit... yet you won't see that part.

Thanks to those of you that have followed this series. I may do some more music related series in the future. My metal friend @damiencraymond has some great intro to metal posts. He is over due for another.

If you missed the previous posts on guitar virtuosity... here they are:
Part 1 - Pre-1980s
Part 2 - 1980s
Part 3 - 1990s
Part 4 - 2000s

This decade... so far... 2010s

This decade is still continuing the trend of guitarists standing upon the shoulders of the giants of the instrument that came before them. There are always more and more new things. Music is decentralizing more and more so it is more and more to social media and digging through it that we must go to find the people that are really taking the instruments to the next level. This decade is the one I am the most out of my depth, but I do know some pretty awesome guitar players.

Joe Haley

Joe Haley -
Joe Haley hails from Australia and is the guitarist for the band Psycroptic. He has some blistering solos and he writes very cool rhythms. I personally am not a fan of the vocal styling of Psycroptic, but there are some people that really love it. I can deal with it though as the guitar work is top notch. I also really want to try one of those Ormsby guitars. I did my research and they have some interesting reasoning behind what they did with the frets. Really quite the beautiful arrangement on the solo here.

Jonny Greenwood

Jonny Greenwood - 1971-
Jonny Greenwood did some interesting performances with the London Contemporary Orchestra this year. While finger wise it was not the most amazing work there was a lot of very interesting stuff with delay and harmonizers. Some people were very captivated by this. It is also a different style so definitely worth being here I believe.

Jamie Cook and Alex Turner

Jamie Cook and Alex Turner -
These are the guitarists for Arctic Monkeys and their name came up quite a few times this decade. I don't really get the virtuosity vibe here, but I could just not "get" it so I am listing them anyway as they may be doing something I don't grasp. To me the guitar work here is average.

Josh T. Pearson

Josh T. Pearson -
Josh T. Pearson came along with some interesting acoustic albums in this last decade and is pretty popular. There seems to be some kind of interesting things there. It has some non-standard arrangement which is oddly compelling. The timing and keys are very different. This is one of those appealing and difficult to pin down things. Is it virtuoso level? Possibly in it's own genre style. I like that it is here in this list.

Jacky Vincent

Jacky Vincent - 1989 -
I could be this guys father, but man he is good. Nice sweep picking technique and he has some serious speed. He is the guitarist for the post-hardcore band Falling in Reverse.

Jim Root

Jim Root - 1971-
Jim root can shred. He plays very much a sound similar to that which I drift towards when I am distorted. He has been around for decades before this as a guitarist in Slipknot and Stone Sour, but he put out some truly good guitar pieces this last decade.

Herman Li

Herman Li - 1976 -
Herman Li is a guitarist in the band Dragonforce which is known for its high speed guitar parts and duets.

Synyster Gates

Synyster Gates - 1981 -
Synyster Gates is a guitarist in the band Avenged Sevenfold.

Alexi Laiho

Alexi Laiho - 1979 -
Alexi Laiho from Children of Bodom is a Finnish guitarist. He is also the guitarist for Sinergy and Kylähullut. He has also performed with other bands.

Andy James

Andy James -
Andy James is quite the popular guitarist on youtube and is very talented.

Jon Gomm

Jon Gomm -
Alright I didn't know about this guy and he is fun, skilled, and different. Some very cool acoustic guitar work. This is the ticket. Most of you know I tend to gravitate towards metal, but truly it is people who make new sounds and do new things and take the music to places beyond where they found it. This guy certainly does this. I love this. See I am also benefiting in learning about new music by making this series.

Matt Heafy

Matt Heafy- 1986-
Matt Heafy is a guitarist and lead vocalist for the bandTrivium. He is also the lead vocalist for the band Capharnaum.

Corey Beaulieu

Corey Beaulieu -1983 -
Corey Beaulieu is the lead guitarist of the band Trivium see Matt Heafy above.

Joe Bonamassa

Joe Bonamassa - 1977-
Changing it up a bit Bonamassa opened for B.B. King when he was only 12 years old. He dedicates himself to keeping the blues alive, so obviously he has been active prior to this decade, but his name kept popping up in this decade when I was researching.

Fredrik Akesson

Fredrik Akesson - 1972-
Fredrik Akesson is the lead guitarist for Opeth and is a Swedish guitarist. He was the guitarist for Talisman and he was also a guitarist for Arch Enemy. Until he joined Opeth it was not known for fancy solos. Mikael Akerfeldt (Opeth) instead referred to his own style of soloing as the Slow Hand of Death. Fredrik joining Opeth changed that.

Per Nilsson

Per Nilsson -
Per Nilsson is another Swedish guitarist and one of the founding members of the band Scar Symmetry and is the guitarist for the band Kaipa as well.

Mark Holcomb

Mark Holcomb -
Mark Holcomb is the guitarist for the progressive metal band Periphery based out of Washington D.C.

Tosin Abasi

Tosin Abasi - 1983 -
Tosin Abasi is a Nigerian American musician known as the founder and lead guitarist of the instrumental progressive metal band Animals as Leaders.

Angel Vivaldi

Angel Vivaldi -
I believe Angel Vivaldi is another one of those amazing youtube guitarists. That is where the information seems to point. Either youtube or facebook. I don't do facebook so I can't really give you the details from there.

Jared James Nichols

Jared James Nichols -
Jared James Nichols style seems to have a bit of that southern rock feel to it with a modern kick in the ass.

Henry Kohen

Henry Kohen -
Henry Kohen is a the guitarist for the band Mylets.

Honorable Mentions left off previous posts

Jason Becker

Jason Becker - 1969 -
Jason Becker would often see his name popping up in guitar magazines all over the world with fellow Cacophony band mate Marty Friedman. He was not in the 2010s his action was in the late 80s. When playing with the David Lee Roth band Jason developed Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and in 1996 he lost the ability to speak, but he still composes music on his computer.

Marty Friedman

Marty Friedman - 1962 -
Marty Friedman and Cacophony were names that kept coming up along with Jason Becker in the 80s in most guitar magazines. He was also the second guitarist in Megadeth for most of the 1990s. He has been in Tokyo, Japan since 2003 and mostly hosts Japanese television programs such as Rock Fujiyama.

Jake E. Lee

Jake E. Lee - 1957 -
Jake E. Lee is noted as the guitarist that Ozzy Osbourne tapped to replace Randy Rhoads after Randy's death. He was in turn replaced by Zakk Wylde. The song Bark At The Moon which is popular with guitarists around the world was a Jake E. Lee song. He was later in the band Badlands and in 2013 formed the band Red Dragon Cartel.

Jon Schaffer

Jon Schaffer - 1968-
Jon Schaffer of Iced Earth and Sons of Liberty is here for one reason only. When it comes to wickedly fast, choppy, galloping rhythms I've not heard anyone better. Does that make him a virtuoso? We have acoustic people that have unique sounds, I'd say in his style he is perhaps top dog. He's not bad at soloing either but his rhythms are unique sounding and immediately noticeable.

Conclusion

Thank you for following this series and supporting me. I love music and I will try to come up with some more worthy posts for all of you in the future.