Rainbow Tower Rainbow Tower The Rainbow Tower is a tower located at the Rainbow Plaza Canada–US border station of the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. Construction on the tower was completed in 1947. The tower, part of the Canadian plaza of the bridge, was designed by Canadian architect William Lyon Somerville. The Rainbow Tower houses a carillon—a musical instrument consisting of a baton keyboard that controls a series of bells. The Rainbow Carillon is sounded three times a day, 365 days a year. It features 55 bells with a total weight of over 43 tons. The instrument is controlled via
Carillon from the lowest note (the bourdon) and may continue up to two and half octaves. In the North American Standard keyboard, all notes can be played on the manual. Because of the acoustic peculiarities of a carillon bell (the prominence of the minor third, and the lack of damping of sound), music written for other instruments needs to be arranged specifically for the carillon. The combination of carillon and other instruments, while possible, is generally not a happy marriage. The carillon is generally far too loud to perform with most other concert instruments. The great exceptions to this are some