# Teaching Songs



## Miranda (Feb 21, 2009)

Is there a certain length of notes that a cockatiel can be expected to memorize? My daughter is teaching her tiel a "song(whistle)" that he just can't get. Boy, he tries and tries, poor thing. It has 10 notes. Is that too long? He has been trying for about 3 weeks. He doesn't seem to be much closer, maybe a bit. He has learned shorter "songs."

Thanks!


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## Siobhan (Mar 21, 2010)

I've heard a Quaker parrot sing the whole Quaker parrot song, which is roughly the length of Happy Birthday, and I don't see why a tiel couldn't learn 10 notes. Give him a little more time. My tiel is picking stuff up from my Quakers that I'm not even teaching him; he's just learning from listening to them.


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## guatemama (Jan 30, 2010)

My tiel Willie is a great whistler, but I don't teach him more than about 12 notes of a song. Some he picked up quickly, but a couple - "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and "Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, It's Off To Work We Go" I thought he'd never learn - I gave up after a couple of weeks. But then, a couple of weeks after I gave up, I noticed he was finally trying to whistle them - now he does them perfectly! So don't give up yet - get right in his face and whistle the phrase over and over - you should be able to tell if he's paying attention. Good Luck!


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## Renae (Feb 9, 2008)

I taught one of my males to whistle "pop goes the weasel" -- I whistled the first part of it, then when he knew how to do that part, I taught him the next part and etc etc. He didn't know how to whistle the parts straight away, it took a bit for each one, but he did eventually get it, and when he did, I just kept doing the same thing, repeat the first part, second parts and so on and I kept doing that, then I'd start whistling 2 parts together and then I'd add an extra part on every so often and then I kept whistling the whole song which he knew then how to put all the parts of the song together.. I kept whistling the whole song and before I knew it he was doing the whole song! 

I also have 3 other males who now whistle pop goes the weasel as well, but they whistle the whole song and not just parts, lol.


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