Teaching a cockatiel to sing/whistle

[Vampiric_Conure]

I'm hoping someone has some advice on how to teach Moon, my new cockatiel male, how to whistle. I've never taught a bird how to whistle before. It usually just happened and it was a wolf whistle, LOL! His owner before me taught him 'If you're happy and you know it' and was starting to teach him the Addams family theme. I'd love to teach him the rest of the Addams Family theme in memory of his former owner. I'm sure she'd be tickled pink!

So yeah... tips? Tricks? It's not hugely important that he mimic the song. I generally don't care if my birds mimic or not. But it would be NICE if he did, LOL!

and Picture tax of the above mentioned bird included below:

 

[DonnaBudgie]

If you can whistle, keep repeating the tune yourself and he will learn it. If you can't, then play whistling to tunes on some sort of device. Repetition is key. Once he picks up one tune, he will learn new ones pretty quickly.

 

[Greenhouseparrots]

I hope someone comes along with some good advice! I have a cockatiel that learnt a few things from his previous owners but I haven't been able to teach him anything new in the year I've had him.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

I hope someone comes along with some good advice! I have a cockatiel that learnt a few things from his previous owners but I haven't been able to teach him anything new in the year I've had him.

What did he learn from the previous owners?

 

[Greenhouseparrots]

What did he learn from the previous owners?

He learnt how to wolf whistle, the iphone ringtone, an alarm clock sound, some kind of bird call that I can't figure out but it's very complex (I might figure out how to post a video on here and see if anyone here can identify it), and he tries to say "hey baby". He also makes up a lot of his own songs, including just screaming full pelt into my female cockatiels ear which I'm sure he thinks is attractive since he does it so often

 

[DonnaBudgie]

He learnt how to wolf whistle, the iphone ringtone, an alarm clock sound, some kind of bird call that I can't figure out but it's very complex (I might figure out how to post a video on here and see if anyone here can identify it), and he tries to say "hey baby". He also makes up a lot of his own songs, including just screaming full pelt into my female cockatiels ear which I'm sure he thinks is attractive since he does it so often

Play whistling tunes on a device or whistle yourself. He should pick up new tunes. @onamom teaches her Green Cheeks Conure all sorts of tricks. She has threads about teaching tricks.

 

[TenthDoctor34]

Maybe try whistling to him and try various tunes and repeat them. My tiels always just somehow learned it, I not even sure I taught them, they either just know it when I adopted them or picked up various tunes over the years. They liked the telephone ring and singing pop goes a weasel . They then kinda taught each other stuff the other didn't know. So maybe play videos of cockatiels singing/whistling as well.

 

[Vampiric_Conure]

Thank you everybirdy for the great advice! I'm gonna try a bird playlist with their favorite tunes (and ones that won't drive me crazy) that I'll play frequently for them. Moon does the cutest rendition of 'If you're happy and you know it', LOL