Tagore was a prolific composer, with 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as "rabindrasangit" ("Tagore Song"), which merges fluidly into his literature, most of which—poems or parts of novels, stories, or plays alike—were lyricised. Influenced by the "thumri" style of Hindustani music, they ran the entire gamut of human emotion, ranging from his early dirge-like Brahmo devotional hymns to quasi-erotic compositions. They emulated the tonal colour of classical "ragas" to varying extents. Some songs mimicked a given raga's melody and rhythm faithfully; others newly blended elements of different "ragas". Yet about nine-tenths of his work was not "bhanga gaan", the body of tunes revamped with "fresh value" from select Western, Hindustani, Bengali folk and other regional flavours "external" to Tagore's own ancestral culture. Scholars have attempted to gauge the emotive force and range of Hindustani "ragas":