Wow, Karen, you are a wealth of information! When you said the recorder is not a transposing instrument, the light bulb came on. I am used to transposing a lot. My wife plays flute, I play at church from the hymnal (with a pocket trumpet in C), and I was in a brass quintet. One guy in the quintet could not read the bass clef or transpose so I had to do it. I did use notation software which made the job a lot easier. I already like the alto recorder better since I won’t have to transpose. I think my confusion arose because the trumpet is built in Bb and I thought the alto recorder was also built in the F key. Now, I understand that the reference is to low range.
I’m looking forward to playing some simple Christmas carols, hopefully this year. Your valued and detailed explanation was a big help and easy to understand. Many Thanks!