Southland musician Jason Schmidt and his family have put their locked down time together to creative use, writing and recording an original soundtrack to their experience – complete with music video.

Simply titled 'Lockdown', the song was written by Mr Schmidt and performed by his equally musical kids. 

He said the song came about after he was trying to teach his daughters, Destiny and Aniva, how simple it was to layer different pieces of music together.

"I've got all the recording gear here and I was talking to the girls about how easy it is to layer vocals in a song and then I thought the easiest way to explain it was just to make a song and show them."

Mr Schmidt said he recorded all of the instruments one by one and then individually pieced them together to make a whole song.

"I would layer one track down and think 'oh it needs a bit more colour here' and then keep adjusting it."

 In total, he said he played three different guitar tracks, one bass track, one drum track and two different rhythm tracks.

He said as the song was inspired by their current situation – being in lockdown – so finding the right lyrics was easy and the "song pretty much wrote itself" in a couple of hours. 

Then his kids got to perform it and shoot the music video.

His daughter Destiny is singing the lead vocals and his younger daughter Aniva is singing the backup vocals. 

"It was also about expressing fun," he said. "Music should always be about enjoyment and beautiful things."

The music video was shot at the family's home in Otatara and the kids can be seen dancing, singing and working out around their neighbourhood and at home.

The family is also heavily involved in fitness and have been doing regular CrossFit exercises online while in lockdown to help keep a sense of normality and structure to their day. 

CrossFit is Mr Schmidt's other passion and he said it enabled him to be a better performer by keeping his mind and body healthy. 

"It's like yin and yang. You've got to have balance," he said. 

A well-known entertainer, Mr Schmidt makes most of his income performing at bars, gigs and weddings but his work has mostly come to a halt over lockdown. 

However, he is staying positive and knows that nothing will last forever. 

"It was definitely a shock [when it happened] but you've just got to look after yourself and eventually this will end."

He said things were already looking up with some some wedding bookings coming through for July.

"People are very positive that this will be over soon, they're booking in for the full packages. Everything is pencilled in but we're not taking any deposits until we know for sure what's going to happen."

In the meantime, Mr Schmidt is keeping busy at home with his family and is using this rare downtime to do what he and his family love the most – jam music and keep fit together. 

The Team Schmidt song 'Lockdown' can be viewed below.