The Ukulele Tango

Anybody want to tango? We've featured several great tangos over the years, such as "The Turkey Tango" (Vol. 8, No. 2), "The Exercise Tango" (Vol. 15, No. 3), "Character Tango" (Vol. 19, No. 4), and "The Thank You Tango" (Vol. 33, No. 5). Then it occurred to us that the ukulele would be perfect to feature in a tango piece! So, we present to you "The Ukulele Tango." For this song we're using the traditional Hawaiian pronunciation of the word ukulele – "oo-koo-lay-lay."

A tango by nature is very dramatic in sound and look. This song has a unison vocal part that should be sung with great emphasis and over-the-top theatrics. Your ukulele players should look very serious while they strum the chords. It would be really neat to have them "tango" walk from side to side with sharp, staccato-like movement, as if the uke is their partner. Of course, this will take a bit of coordination, but it would make for a very humorous performance. You could also just have a pair or two of tango dancers while the singers and players perform the song.

The ukulele part uses four chords – Ami, Emi, G, and C. The trickiest of those is the Emi. To make that chord a little easier to play, you can eliminate the second finger (the E string), or simply pluck the E or G string in place of the Emi chord. The uke part indicates a pattern that works nicely with the accompaniment, but you can certainly simplify that if you need to. It would still look and sound great if all the players did was strum the downbeat of each measure. To make it easier for your young players to follow along, we have included a PDF of the isolated ukulele part on our web site.