tommy learned at first from g.g. armstrong, and subsequently taking further lessons for two years from tom clough after armstrong gave up teaching through ill-health. he also learned the highland pipes - it is rare to master both instruments, with their very different fingering and sound. he was perhaps the last piper to have known the playing of the cloughs directly. he described tom clough's set of exercises, which he said were similar to g.g. armstrong's. they consisted of scales and arpeggios - the pupil would have to start slowly, and increase speed till mistakes happened. another group of exercises, based on variation sets, are all found in the four tunes "fenwick of bywell", "jacky layton", "felton lonnen" and "oh dear, what can the matter be". he also gave a description of tom clough's meticulous teaching technique: "he made you break a tune down and play it bar by bar. if there was a bar bothering you, you played that bar until you got it right. then you put the bars together, then put the measure together, and then eventually the tune together. finally you could start at the beginning and go through it. "