Montoya is credited with having transformed flamenco guitar music into a separate music style, beyond being a traditional dance accompaniment. He adapted flamenco to other genres of music to create his own recognizable style, becoming an international star. However, his style was not particularly appreciated by some serious flamenco students, who considered it less traditional than many others. That he was unpopular among aficionados was possibly because he abandoned the "compás" that had evolved within flamenco over hundreds of years. Many of his works do not even keep perfect tempo, increasing and decreasing in speed almost whimsically. He was admired for the speed of his picados and found popularity on the international stage as a result of this technically impressive pace.