As a singer myself, I love the show “The Voice” as much as the next never-gonna-try-out undiscovered singing sensation.
But I’m not the only one in my household who is aspiring in the vocalizing department.
Cockatiels, like most larger birds, can experience fairly strong emotions – in fairly frequent fluctuations. It is not uncommon, for instance, that Pearl will start off with a mild chirp (possibly a polite request for a neck scratch, more millet, or something to chew). When that goes unacknowledged for any reason, mild can accelerate in shockingly short order to the type of whining scream usually only heard from military aircraft.
But I have discovered a secret weapon in my calm-the-birdie arsenal.
My voice.
Pearl – inexplicably – quite simply adores it when I practice the vocal exercises my singing coach gave me. She quiets down immediately….sometimes even in mid-screech. And then she starts softly, cheerfully, chirping along “in the pocket” (for non-musicians, that is musician-speak for in perfect rhythm with the spaces between each vocal run).
If you can imagine a female Santa Claus warming up, that is what these exercises sound like. “Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho”.
Literally.
She LOVES them.
I can’t wait until Christina Aguilera and Adam Levine get a load of her vocal routine. But she can’t pick Cee Lo as a judge – she probably won’t get along too well with that white kitty he carries around everywhere.
Music soothes the savage beastie 😀 – and I can imagine you both have vocal/sound games you play together with different noises. It’s the same here, though my parrots are Amazon parrots, so they are small but still loud enough to hear down the street (look out Celine Dion!) but no matter how maniacal one of them in particular is being or how worried the other is being, they love the voices of ‘songbirds’ like Mariah Carey or Sarah Brightman. Those strong, pure voices with a lot of range – I suppose they can appreciate and relate to those. I’m not too sure how a cockatiel sounds as it’s been a while since I’ve seen one but I know that alot of us blessed and cursed (same difference) human ‘owners’ end up with hearing aids in the later years whether our birdzilla chirp or squawk (which we know turns to screech and scream a lot and I thought I was a moody little git! Well they’ve shown me ha!).
Yes – Pearl loves to “sing” along with me when I play guitar (and bite the strings) and she adores music….especially new age stuff that sounds like tropical rainforests. She also loves flute – although I can’t say I love the sounds she makes when she is “conversing” with the instruments. I can’t imagine having more than one bird singing away – post a pic of your parrots if you can! 🙂