Background In spite of the arguments developed so far about the cognitive status of the underlying musical structure, the following questions remain unanswered: How are underlying events abstracted? How does the listener derive hierarchical structures from the musical piece? Recently, hypothesis about the metaphorical nature of music cognition have been enounced, highlighting the assumption that metaphorical thinking -present in the language used to conceptualise music- might, at some extent, model musical experience. In this paper, it is hypothesized that the underlying musical structure is metaphorically experienced, based on the implicit use of basic image-schematic structures developed during the life-course of an individual’s embodied interaction with the environment. By means of a process of crossdomain mapping, the listener uses knowledge from a given domain to understand information in another domain. Aims To test the hypothesis that the underlying voiceleading is metaphorically experienced, through the activation of a blockage-release of blockage imageschema. Method 31 musicians listened to 9 melodic fragments that represent examples of interrupted underlying structures, paired with 3 musical reductions (contour, rhythm and voice-leading). 3 visual animations corresponding to three image-schemas (up-down, blockage-release of blockage and interonset beats) were used to prime the activation of a cross-domain mapping process, in order to hear A in terms of B, being A the musical piece and B the structural feature highlighted by the reduction. It was assumed that, to the extent that the primed image-schema corresponds to the feature highlighted in a given reduction, the match fragment-reduction would be weighted higher in that pair than in the other ones. Results Data analysis found significant differences between the three different conditions of exposure to the experience of the underlying voice-leading. They estimated higher the match fragment-voice leading reduction when they were primed with the blockage-release of blockage image-schema. Conclusions Results bring strong support to the assumption that metaphorical thinking models the experience of hierarchy in music, and that structural metaphors are used not only as linguistic constructs but also as internal models of cognitive processing that listeners activate during the experience of the underlying musical structure.