“The first thing they’ll try and do is make one of the six-string guitar shapes work. It's a car crash!” Jacob Collier on how his 5-string signature Strandberg guitar is forcing guitarists to rethink their approach to playing

While Jacob Collier is the true definition of a multi-instrumentalist, his off-kilter approach to guitar and his preference for a five-string have established him as a truly inventive guitarist.

His five-string signature JC 5 Djesse with Strandberg Guitars, announced just a few days ago, cements his position as an innovator. However, Collier doesn't want the atypical number of strings to intimidate guitarists.

“It’s a unique experience for guitar players to approach something without any rules,” Collier says in an interview with Guitar.com, in which he discusses his unusual signature guitar.

“It’s funny, I’ve handed the five-string to lots of people who have been interested. And the first thing they’ll try and do is make one of the six-string guitar shapes work. It’s just a car crash! And it’s such a delightful thing, watching them disregard things that they thought they knew, and just be a child again.”

Jacob Collier's 5-string signature guitar | .strandberg* Guitars - YouTube

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In a 2023 interview with GuitarWorld, Collier explained how the five-string guitar concept came about.

“The first guitar I ever owned and fell in love with was a four-string Tenor guitar tuned in fifths like a mandolin one octave lower – G D A E ascending. The feeling of this under my fingers became a deeply strong magnet for my music world.

“It really clicked when I tuned the highest string down a tone to a D (G D A D) as it unlocked some of my 4ths-based language that was native to me as a bass player before that.”

Collier then realized that he “craved” a bit more range in the bottom end, so he decided to add a lower fifth string, plus a retune of the fourth and third strings, to the mix.

“Thus, the design for the D A E A D guitar [his preferred tuning] emerged in my imagination.”

For more information and specs on the songwriter’s new signature model, check out the full announcement for the Strandberg JC 5 Djesse.